The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In a very solemn manner, the General Secretary then named those of our dear members who had left the physical plane during the year, and linked this with a brief description of the relationship of the deceased to Theosophy, especially the three ladies from Stuttgart who had passed away: Mrs. Lina Schwarz, Mrs. Cohen and Mrs. Aldinger.

In such a case, too, we can place ourselves in the soul of the deceased, in particular, in terms of the importance of what Theosophy can offer us. We do not want to try to console the bereaved of our dear friends who have passed away with banal phrases, but we want to point out that although we are only at the beginning of our movement, the overall karma of it must gradually be balanced in the individual karma. The Theosophists must feel it their duty to support each other in certain cases. Thus the popular phrase of universal love for humanity is replaced by a true understanding of individual real love for one's neighbor. If human love does not take hold of individual cases and become active there, it remains a mere phrase. Such thoughts must arise in us when we see from time to time this or that of our dear members leave the physical plane.

After the expiration of our seven-year period, we have other things to report, which we Theosophists always characterize differently than the outside world. Just in this past year, we have had to report the passing of some of our oldest members, some of whom were particularly committed to the Theosophical cause, to the physical plane. And when we remember these dear Theosophical members of ours, we think of them in the same way and with the same love that we regarded them as belonging to us while they were among us in the physical world. We want to say that for us Theosophists there is something that is considered a duty in the outer, non-Theosophical world, but which must be a special consecration and a special permeation with the content of the nuances of feelings and thoughts acquired in the Theosophical life for us Theosophists. This is the forwarding of love, the forwarding of our best feelings beyond the physical plane to those who have left this physical plane. We should strive to develop such feelings, strengthened by the theosophical sentiment, towards the departed. We should make ourselves capable of sending such feelings to the other worlds through our theosophical progress, so that we feel the love, truth, and good that we have encountered in such members as an ever-present presence, and so that these members themselves feel constantly present, so that we speak of them as those who continue to walk among us, and whose walk becomes more and more sacred to us for the reason that what they can send us from that world must be more valuable to them than what they could give us on the physical plane. In this active way we remember those of our dear members who left the physical plane in the past year.

In particular, we remember an elderly member who has been with us since the Section was founded. We feel a special closeness to her because the brother of this member, who is here as our dear friend Mr. Wagner, is close to us in turn.

Miss Amalie Wagner in Hamburg, who is well known to many of us, left the physical plane during the course of this year, and we will always look to what she tried to do for Theosophical life. Many of those Theosophists who were close to our dear Amalie Wagner have, in their inmost hearts, come to appreciate the work of Amalie Wagner in an extraordinary way and have shown an unlimited love for this friend. And that was only the beautiful reflection of the beautiful Theosophical striving in the soul of Amalie Wagner. And it is with reverence and sacred consecration that we commemorate an important moment in the life of Amalie Wagner. That was the moment when her sister, who had been a member of our movement with her in Hamburg, preceded her in death. At that time I was able to experience the beautiful, loving understanding with which Amalie Wagner's soul approached the event that took place with the death of her sister. There I was able to receive, so to speak, Amalie Wagner's genuine theosophical feeling of looking up to her sister. How Amalie Wagner looked up to the higher worlds to form ideas about how a person lives on in these higher worlds was the subject of much discussion in Amalie Wagner's dear, lonely living room. And now we look after her in thought, as she in turn receives from above what is offered to her and from below, from the physical plane, the feelings of love and admiration that we have for her from here. We can already see two sides of this soul today, how she lives up and down, how a person in the spiritual world lives when there is an impulse in their heart to join what passes through our movement as a soul. And so we look with devotion and love for the soul of this dear Miss Wagner, as if she were always present to us.

Another old member has left the physical plane, who is indeed known to few, but these few are those who loved this dear member very much, who, whenever they met with him, felt anew the reverence-inspiring soul of our dear friend Jargues Tschudy in Glarus, who has belonged to our German Section from the very beginning. He was met by a number of our dear members at the Swiss Theosophical Society meetings. And if I may use a word in this case that is meant very seriously, I would like to say that the soul of this personality worked in such a way that one could not help but love it. And those who often saw how this man was loved know that those who knew him will continue to send this feeling to him in the spiritual world.

Then there is another exceptionally ambitious member who, in vigorous energy, tried to penetrate into the exoteric and esoteric of Theosophy, and who only in recent years joined our German Section, has left the physical plan. Our dear friend Minuth from Riga was present at the last Stuttgart cycle; then he reappeared in Hamburg, and by then his outer physical body was already afflicted with the germ that did not allow him to live further. He was no longer able to attend the complete cycle and left the physical plane soon afterwards. We will also send up to the higher worlds those feelings that we not only had when we decided to become Theosophists, but that we have acquired during our Theosophical life.

We have seen another personality depart from the physical plane: the wife of our dear friend Sellin. You all know our dear friend Sellin from previous theosophical meetings. While he was working in Zurich, his dear wife passed over into the spiritual world. Our dear friend understands his wife's passing in the most wonderful way, and anyone who has been privileged to feel what Sellin himself feels towards the dead knows how the theosophist should feel towards the dead in the true, beautiful sense. I would have to speak words that would describe in the most vivid colors feelings that stream up vividly into the spiritual world if I wanted to convey to you some of the beautiful words that were sent from the soul of our dear friend Sellin here on the physical plane to his beloved wife. But it is better if we evoke in ourselves, so to speak, only a hint of what can be said through something so beautiful if we have not heard it ourselves. And anyone who, like me, has heard such beautiful words as those of our dear friend Sellin, which bear witness to his truly beautiful, real feelings, anyone who has experienced this himself has no desire to profane such beautiful words by speaking them. But at this moment I have the need in my soul to awaken in your own hearts an inkling of what beautiful feeling, beautiful inner experience is, towards those who have physically disappeared in the direction of the spiritual world.

Another personality in Stuttgart has disappeared from those close to her in the physical world: our dear friend Frenze/ recently lost his wife to the higher planes. When we see how we Theosophists begin to develop a real soul life, we need only think of our dear Mrs. Frenzel, who worked so beautifully on her soul to enter into the Theosophical life. Perhaps only those who were close to her soul, like myself, can appreciate this. And so we may send up our love to our dear friend Mrs. Frenzel.

And so we also remember another friend who left the physical plane through a tragic fate, Mrs. /Jedwig von Knebel, whose loving devotion to the Theosophical cause was noticed both when we others were in Wiesbaden and by the Wiesbadeners themselves.

But then the image of a Theosophical personality who recently left the physical plane descends upon us with a special power, with a very special vibrancy from the higher worlds, who for years devoted herself to the Theosophical cause with an intensity, an understanding and a devotion that truly cannot be described in words, and she was able to do a lot. I myself will always remember the moment after a Theosophical meeting when our dear FZilde Stockmeyer approached me for the first time to learn more about some of the things she had learned in Theosophy, which she had absorbed with all the strength she had. On the other hand, she tried – and she was allowed and able to try a great deal – to combine what she had learned in Theosophy with what external science offers in terms of truth and good. And it can be said that her extensive knowledge was also able to bear fruit externally, in that she passed the final exam shortly before her passing, to the satisfaction of the external world. Hilde Stockmeyer's knowledge can be seen as the first thing she gave us as a beautiful gift of her personal values. What Hilde Stockmeyer, the chairwoman of the Malsch lodge, was to us in the physical realm was due to her abilities and the way she processed these abilities. She was therefore called to work fruitfully, and to what Hilde Stockmeyer acquired through the development of her abilities in this way, she added something else, which, through its emanation, worked on those close to her, which could only reveal itself to us through its effect, how fruitful genuine, true, theosophical feeling can become here in human life. This is shown by the way in which father, mother, brothers and sisters and friends took their departure to the higher worlds. This is again proof of the effectiveness of theosophy in human souls in this case. It is proof of this in yet another way than was the case with the others mentioned. Personalities were everywhere around the others who had sought theosophy. Hilde Stockmeyer's parents even confessed: 'She brought us Theosophy, she was sent to us.' The people who had preceded her on the physical plane, who had given her physical life, confessed what they could feel in response to what came to them from the higher worlds in their own daughter, which they had to say: We could not help this being to existence on the physical plane, we were the tool for this. And it is one of the most beautiful feelings that has been expressed within our theosophical movement, that the parents of Hilde Stockmeyer expressed the magnitude of the gratitude and appreciation they felt for the knowledge of their daughter, the knowledge of the daughter who brought Theosophy into the home of the parents. And this glorious echo is what Hilde Stockmeyer's parents express to their daughter, who has passed into the spiritual world. But we should learn to send up to the higher worlds especially for Hilde Stockmeyer what can only be sensed in such matters. And it is clear to me that I cannot send a better feeling up into the spiritual worlds than if I were to send up the feelings of Hilde Stockmeyer's soul myself now, making myself the tool of her soul for the beautiful thing that our dear friend knew how to say out of a beautiful feeling while she was still here with us. In two little poems that were entrusted to me and that came from the pen of our dear friend, which sprang from her beautifully developed mind, she still speaks to us from the physical plane. How Hilde Stockmeyer felt about the eternal teachings of Theosophy may resonate with us from her own little poems at this moment. This is how Hilde Stockmeyer spoke when she was still alive, and this is how she may resonate for us:

Are we really all alone?
Can one never understand the other?
Can he never look into his heart?
Ease his pain?
I think that when love speaks to love,
From the heart with a loyal face,
For the sake of love, to ease the torment,
To alleviate the pain with loving words,
then I think it can't be in vain!
Are we really all alone?
Are there no bridges to every heart?
Is there no balm for all pain?
When we sink eye to eye,
not thinking of ourselves at all,
we don't even need words,
True understanding speaks without sound!
Even to the most hardened hearts
There is a way.
If you walk courageously on a shaky path
With the one thought: to be a helper,
You will soon no longer be alone!

Let us try, after their departure from our hearts, to develop feelings that are worthy of theirs, feelings that will let them follow her. And let us learn to feel as she herself felt and as she expressed it in the other little poem:

I want to be a pure source of blessing
That always flows and never must dry up,
A heart full of courage I would call my own,
That never desponds and never trembles in pain.
And love I would stream through the worlds;
That all living things shall rejoice with delight.
And thus giving I would quietly sink into the All,
Like a melody that fades away softly.

She spoke like this in life, and she died for the physical plane. It goes without saying that we should endeavor to send her something as valuable as she did, sensing her own death, speaking in her last words, the last little poem. Those who knew Hilde Stockmeyer as I did know that the death of this dear soul was:

And so I would like to quietly sink into the universe,
Like a melody that fades away.

The meeting honored the memory of the above-named individuals by rising from their seats.

Above all, it is my duty to remember an old member of the German Section and the Cologne branch, our dear Miss Flippenmeyer, who, with an ever-increasing warmth for our theosophical thoughts, combined an extraordinarily great activity for the broadest world interests. Those who knew her well were as much drawn to her beautiful, good, theosophical heart as they were to her world interests. Miss Hippenmeyer did not pursue these interests in a philistine way, but undertook extensive journeys that could be called world tours. If you consider only the external, purely technical difficulties of these trips for a single traveling lady, and Miss Hippenmeyer was still a frail lady, then that is something to be admired. She was extremely active in our theosophical cause in a very likeable way, and it was painful for all those who knew her to hear that she left the physical plane in Java during one of her great journeys.

Furthermore, I have to mention an extraordinarily active co-worker, who also belonged to the Cologne Lodge, our dear friend Ludwig Lindemann. I still have the impression I had when I saw Ludwig Lindemann for the first time, who vividly presented his tendencies to me. Since then, it has grown from day to day, despite the fact that the greatest obstacle for him was present, namely a severe illness. Nevertheless, he has had no other thought than to stake his entire existence on the spread of theosophical thought. And when he had to go to Italy for the sake of his health, he worked there to cultivate the theosophical idea. There he founded the small centers that we have in Milan and Palermo. He knew how to establish the most intense and heartfelt Theosophical life in these places. Ludwig Lindemann was loved by all who knew him, with the kind of love that can arise from the self-evidence of spiritual connection with a person. Lindemann pursued his great theosophical interests intensely, and I could see when I visited him in the last few weeks before his death how a deep, heartfelt, theosophical enthusiasm emerged from his decaying body. So it was a deep satisfaction for me to see how our Milanese friends felt deeply connected to our dear friends Lindemann. When I was in Milan, I was shown the room that had been prepared for Lindemann, where he could have lived if he had been able to come to Italy again. At the time, I was firmly convinced that he could have continued to work for a few more years if it had been possible for him to come to Italy again; everything was prepared for him there; karma wanted it differently. But we look after him, as Theosophists look after the one who has left the scene of his life and work in the physical world in our sense, in that we feel just as faithfully and warmly connected to him as we did when he was still with us on the physical plane.

I must also mention a third personality who has left the physical plane, perhaps unexpectedly quickly for many; it is our dear section member Dr. Max Asch. In the course of his very eventful life, he had to endure many things that could make it difficult for a person to join a purely spiritual movement. But in the end he found his way to us in such a way that he, the doctor, found the best remedy for his suffering in the cultivation of theosophical reading and thought. He repeatedly assured me that no other belief could give the doctor any other remedy in his soul than that which could come spiritually from theosophical books, that he felt the theosophical teaching flowing like a balm into his pain-torn body. He continued to cultivate Theosophy in this way until the hour of his death. And it was a difficult renunciation for me when, after our friend had passed away, his daughter wrote to me asking me to say a few words at his grave, but I could not fulfill this wish because that day marked the beginning of my lecture series in Prague, and it was therefore impossible for me to pay this last service to my theosophical friend on the physical plane. You may rest assured that the words I should have spoken at his grave were sent to him in the world he had entered at that time.

Furthermore, I would like to mention a friend from Berlin, a member of our Besant branch, who, after various endeavors, finally found himself in our movement as if in a harbor. He is our dear friend Ernst Pitschner, who had been afflicted with the seeds of decay for a long time, stayed with us and was united with us in the most intense way in our theosophical work until his death. It was a strange karma that after a few weeks his wife followed him into the supersensible worlds.

Furthermore, I would like to remember our dear member Christian Dieterle from Stuttgart. He has worked hard but extremely diligently to find his way into theosophical life and in the last few months was a man who thought in the most intense theosophical way.

Then we want to commemorate an older Theosophist who was snatched from the Mühlhausen branch, Josef Keller. It is one of those cases where, despite having only met a person once in life, one must immediately recognize a deep state of mind and heart in him. In his last months, Keller asked to be among the most fervently convinced Theosophists, and all who knew him will remember him fondly and faithfully.

Furthermore, I have to mention a man who, confined to his bed by a serious illness, was introduced to Theosophy through the mediation of a person dear to us, Kar Gresterding.

I have to mention our dear friend Edmund Rebstein, who was taken from us at a relatively young age after a short illness, and who those who knew him well have come to hold in the highest esteem.

I have a similar story to tell about Frau Major Göring, who worked with our branch for many years.

The list of our deceased this time is so long that what I would like to say would take up too much time.

I still have to mention our members Erwin Baumberger from Zurich, Georg Stephan from Breslau, Mrs. Fanny Russenberger from St. Gallen, Johannes Rademann from Leipzig, Kar! Schwarze from Leipzig, Wilhelm Eckle from Karlsruhe, Georg Flamann from Hannover, Wilhelmine Mössner from Stuttgart I, Walter Krug from Cologne, Mrs. Sölbermann from Heidelberg, Mrs. Zind/ from Munich I.

I still consider it my duty to remember at this point the departure from the physical plane of a personality who was well known in all theosophical circles, who was snatched from us by a painful death, who has done a lot of work, and whom we remember with love as much as the others. I am talking about Mrs. Flelene von Schewitsch. You know her books, so I do not need to characterize her in more detail. I must emphasize that I always accepted her invitation when she asked me during my stays in Munich to give a lecture in her circle as well. I would just like to hint that for me this whole life presents itself as something deeply tragic; and I may well say that Mrs. von Schewitsch has shown me extraordinary trust, and that I am justified in saying: this life had a deep tragedy. I was also granted a glimpse into this heart, and please understand that when I say tragic, I mean what most of you would understand by tragic in my lectures. We are fulfilling a duty of warmth to express outwardly how we are connected in thought with the dead by rising from our seats.

Dear friends!

When the dear woman whose mortal remains we are gathered around here, looks down from the bright heights of the spirit and reads our souls to see why we are here, she will hear the simple, plain and yet so meaningful answer: we all loved her and will always love her. And when the son and daughter, whom she brought to us for many years through several summer weeks for our deepest satisfaction, and the granddaughter return to their earthly home with the mortal remains of the dear woman, they may take with them the thought that during the times during the time she lived among us, she endeared herself to all hearts with her loving nature and noble qualities, and now we look up with love to the soul that has freed itself from its earthly shell and ascended to the spiritual realm. And the son wishes me to express these thoughts by thanking those gathered in his and his relatives' name for their heartfelt sympathy at the passing of the dear wife and for the floral tributes that express this sympathy.

And the daughter, who lives in spiritual community with our dear friends, will always feel strengthened by the fact that so many dear colleagues send their thoughts to the spiritual world with her for her dear mother, when she herself will faithfully and devotedly send her thoughts there.

How warmly and sincerely the deceased was loved was always expressed by our friends when this woman was among them each year; they loved her because their souls recognized her kind and noble character and felt sincere affection for it. And this was a feeling that was based on inner understanding. The soul that has left us took a warm interest in the spiritual life that our friends cultivate. And how she related to the glimpse into the spiritual worlds often came to my mind in recent years when she spoke of these worlds and of her hope of being together with her dear husband there in the future. So we stand here around her mortal remains and believe that our thoughts and loving feelings will find the dear soul in the realm that man enters when he has crossed the threshold of death.

And especially in the last days of her painful suffering, one could feel this relationship to the divine worlds so beautifully, It poured into my soul like a warm spiritual intimacy when the daughter, who is working with us in spirit, shared with me the feelings with which the deceased listened to the spirit-imbued ode by Zschokke, which expresses the elevation of the earthly human to divine heights in the last hours in which she could still absorb words. Thus her last meaningful impression was caused by a glimpse into the spiritual world when her daughter read the poem to her.

All this strengthens our belief that we may forward as a last earthly greeting the words that express our way of thinking about man's entering the higher worlds when he has found the connection with these worlds here on earth. And we may think that the harmonies of their soul will resound, which man can find in the realm of peace of mind, and that the spiritual light will shine upon it, which is permeated with love. And this, our last earthly greeting, is the thought: The dear woman knew herself grounded in the divine here. Those who were allowed to stand by her deathbed when her soul detached itself from the mortal shell know that she died in that to which we are so faithfully devoted, in the power and essence of Christ; therefore we may believe that the spirit will lead her to the light in which the soul will live peacefully.

Live well and be bathed in light! This is what the souls who loved you so dearly here and who will continue to love you call after you.

What I would like is that at least in a single act, many a dark ray that could shine in later might not shine in; that is, in view of the difficulties of our negotiations, we should this time remember right at the beginning those who, since we last gathered here, when our dear Theosophical friends left the physical plane.

I need not, of course, after years of talking about the feelings and sensations in such cases, particularly emphasize today that for the truly sensitive Theosophist, a person's transition from one plan to another is just a change of form of existence, and that since we feel connected by bonds which are not bound to one plan, these bonds to our dear Theosophical friends will remain the same even if they are obliged to change one plan for another. Thus those who have passed away from us will have loving friends in us, and we will have loving friends in them, as we turn our thoughts wherever we can to those who were so often privileged to visit while they were still working with us on the physical plane.

First and foremost, I have to mention a member who worked with us theosophically for many years, so that her kind and loving heart brought her intimate friends from all over, Mrs. Mia Holm, who left us last summer after a painful illness. Those who have had the opportunity to be touched by the beautiful poetic talent of Mia Holm know very well how significant it was to have this personality in our midst, and how we have every reason to remember this personality forever and ever, as far as we feel connected to her. There are many among us who loved Mia Holm dearly, who also had a deep love for her poetic talent, for her entire lovable personality.

Secondly, allow me to mention not only a long-standing member of our Theosophical work, but also, so to speak, the oldest Theosophist we ever had, our dear Mrs. Bontemps in Leipzig. She belonged to our way of thinking and feeling so completely with all her heart that even the most ordinary things that came from her lips felt imbued with Theosophical sentiment and warmth when one spoke with her. And those who got to know Mrs. Bontemps well appreciate her good heart, her in so many ways great and comprehensive character, her theosophical attitude that so easily and justifiably wins people's hearts. It was deeply satisfying for me to be able to say many a word to her in the last days when she was still on the physical plane, when she could no longer leave her sickbed. And just as many a word that I was able to speak with her in her healthier days will remain unforgettable to me, so too will the conversations that I was allowed to have with her at her last sickbed.

I have to mention Miss Klara Brand, who ended her life on the physical plane this summer due to a regrettable accident. I emphasize expressly, because misunderstandings have spread in many ways, that in the case of Miss Brand it is a matter of a completely natural death, caused by a state of weakness that brought about the misfortune of her unfortunate fall; it is nothing other than a completely natural death. We remember her as she clung to the theosophical cause for many years in spite of many difficulties, and how this theosophical cause made that out of her soul which she wanted to be here.

I have many loyal and dear friends to remember, both those I gained just before her death and those who have been with us for many years. If I were to say everything that is on my mind here, it would be a very long speech out of what is only of value if we all start our thoughts about our departed friends with a loving sentiment.

Thus I have to commemorate a long-standing member, Mr. Leo Ellrich from the Leipzig Lodge.

Thus to commemorate a particularly poignant death, because we are not only painfully touched in this case by the fact that the deceased has left the physical plane, but has also left behind the deeply grieving husband, who is our dear member. When we consider the beautiful way in which Dr. Rösel, who belonged to the Bielefeld Lodge, found her way into the Theosophical movement, how she strove to enter it, when we remember that, then we most certainly empathize with our dear friend Dr. Rösel, who is such a loyal and beloved member.

I have to remember two friends from Basel who were very much appreciated and loved in their immediate circle, the two members Goz7lieb Hiltbold and Wilhelm Vockroth. They were loyal, loving, self-sacrificing Theosophical co-workers.

I also have to remember the man who passed away not only because of physical suffering, our friend Hugo Bolze in Eisenach. Most of our friends know Hugo Bolze; he really had a lot to suffer, and we were devoted to him in loyalty and love and will remain so. After seven years of very painful illness, this disease had to lead to death. We stand before him so that we will surely send him the best, most loving thoughts.

We also have to remember a dear friend, Mr. Hans Schellbach, who, after seeking healing in a southern Theosophical colony, could not be saved in the physical life. Suffice it to say that he remained true to his Theosophical beliefs until his last breath, just as he had always demonstrated them in life. That they were a healing medicine for him, that he was so attached to Theosophy that it gave him the strength to sustain him in the happiest as well as in the most sorrowful moments of life.

I must also mention a friend whose death, in a certain respect, had something extraordinarily tragic about it. He was a close friend of a man who was close to circles associated with Theosophy, Mr. Georg Banernfeind. It would be out of place here to speak about the details of our friend's life. It should only be said that 'Theosophy can lead us to understand every kind of seeking, every kind of spiritual experience, and that we will also understand this man's last death path.

Furthermore, I have to mention a man who had a great deal of theosophy in his attitude, but whom few got to know, Mr. Meakin, who left the physical plane in October last year after working with us more and more intensely for a long time.

Miss Erwin-Blöcker, Mrs. Major Herbst, Mrs. Marty, I also have to mention you. Even though you were less prominent in our movement, we are no less called upon to feel united with you beyond the grave. We know, my dear Theosophical friends, how indissoluble our bond remains with those who have left the physical plane through death, and we know that they have entered another sphere of life. So let this moment of union be the starting point for you to feel connected to these friends who have passed away in the sense just expressed, and that you will continue to feel connected to them in the future. Let us express these loving thoughts and feelings that we send to our deceased friends by rising from our seats.

Before I attempt to continue my dear friends' train of thought with a few words, I would like to dedicate the word to those friends who have left the physical plane since we last gathered here and who, as members of our movement that is so close to our hearts, are now looking down on our activities from the spiritual worlds. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize once again that those who have passed away from the physical plane will continue to be considered our members in the most beautiful sense of the word, and that we feel as united with them as we did when we were still able to greet them on this or that occasion on the physical plane.

First of all, we would like to remember an old theosophical personality, old in the sense that she was connected with what we call true, genuine theosophical life for the longest time of most of our ranks, Baroness E. von Hoffmann. She belongs to those who have imbued their entire being and active will with what we call the theosophical attitude. Many have come to appreciate the deeply loving heart of this woman, if only because they have felt infinite strength flowing from this heart in times of suffering and adversity. Although little of this became known to the outside world, Mrs. von Hoffmann was a loyal and devoted helper to many. And we may consider it a particularly valuable thing that she, who had been involved in theosophical development for a long time, was finally in our midst. And with her dear daughter, who is in our midst, we will keep the memory of this dear, loyal, helpful woman, which we want to be united with her in the spiritual world.

I also have to remember some old members who left us for the physical plane just this year. I have to remember our dear old friend Edmund Eggert in Düsseldorf. If some of us perhaps know the great inner difficulties that our friend had to struggle with, the heroic strength with which he became involved in what we call our spiritual current, then those who knew the good, dear man will certainly join me in making unceasing efforts to continue to be loyal friends of our dear Eggert in the spiritual worlds. And those of the dear friends who hear this, which I speak from a troubled heart, will faithfully send their thoughts to the one who has passed from the physical plane.

I also have to mention a dear, loyal member, a member who always gave us heartfelt, sincere joy when we were able to see her in our midst time and again, our dear Mrs. van Dam-Nieuwenhuisen from Nymwegen, who left the physical plane during the last period and who certainly was one of the most beloved personalities among those who were her close friends, who worked faithfully for our cause since we knew her, who especially worked hard for an appropriate representation of our cause among our Dutch dear friends.

I would also like to mention a loyal, if perhaps quieter member who always gave me great joy when I was able to see her in the circle of our dear Nuremberg friends: Fräulein Sophie Ifftner. She was highly esteemed by our Nuremberg friends, who will ensure that the way is paved for us to always find her when we seek her in spiritual worlds.

I must also mention another faithful friend, Miss Frieda Kurze, who has been active within the circle of our worldview for many years. She has been tragically recalled from the physical plane to the spiritual worlds. We are among those to whom she has become dear and precious, and who are and want to remain with her in thought.

I would like to remember our Julius Bittmann, who was torn from the physical plane by his dear family and by us, until his last difficult days he had the firm point of reference of his inner life, despite difficult external circumstances, in what we call Theosophy. It was a deep joy for me that I could once more be at his side on the evening before the death of our dear Bittmann, and I am sure that those of our friends who were closer to this man will not fail to form the path here as well, on which the theosophical thoughts unite us with the friend in the spiritual world.

I must also mention Jakob Knott in Munich, who was a man who, after many different struggles in life, finally found his firm support and his definite point of reference in 'Theosophy', so that his friends will be his mediators in the same way.

I must also mention another friend who left the physical plane during this time, who found his way from Holland to us, Mr. Eduard Zalbin, whom we, sadly mourned by his wife and children, saw depart from the physical plane through a swift death. Shortly before this occurred, Zalbin was still at our last general assembly, and his departure from the physical plane had to be pointed out there.

I must also mention an old friend of the Stuttgart Lodge, who had organized her innermost life in such a way that she associated everything she thought with Theosophy. She will now be surrounded by the loyal thoughts of all those who knew her.

I must also mention Miss Oda Waller, who we felt was connected to our cause with her whole soul, for a long time. She was one of those souls who was so devoted to this cause, as a human soul can be on earth; so devoted that we not only parted from this soul with deep sorrow for her departure from the physical plane – a sorrow that does not need to be particularly emphasized in this case, because all those who knew Miss Oda Waller felt it with the deepest sympathy – but we also looked up to her in the spiritual world with the brightest of hopes, with those hopes that are justified in the case of such a faithful soul who, like Oda Waller, has firmly established in her heart to remain connected to the theosophical cause for all time. There will be more than a few who, united with their dear sister Mieta Waller, will be in heartfelt connection with our dear Miss Oda Waller.

I have to mention our friend Georg Kollnberger from Munich. Those who knew him will be our intermediaries as we reflect on him with our feelings and emotions.

I have to commemorate a dear friend in Bonn who left the physical plane not so long ago, Miss Marie von Schmid. Those who knew her feel deeply how intimately Miss von Schmid's soul was connected with the spiritual life. Those who felt a close bond with Miss von Schmid have lost a great deal: a soul so open to spiritual life, and at the same time a nature that was shy and withdrawn from the outer world. It is such a pleasure to meet such a nature in life. Precisely because she came out of herself so rarely, one got to know her so little. Those who knew her know what I mean by these words.

We must remember a member who was unfortunately snatched from us all too soon in terms of his physical strength, a man who was happy to put his physical strength at the service of our cause, but who will remain an important member of our organization even in the form in which he is now connected to us, Mr. Oro Flamme in Hannover.

I have to commemorate the personality who found herself in the circle of our Nordic friends in our midst, and who, after a long, heroically endured illness, despite the most careful and loving care, ultimately had to leave the physical plane after all, Fräulein Manch. Perhaps those who were closest to her will understand what I would also like to express about this soul when we consider how she, I would say, clung to the theosophical cause with inner strength and thus passed through the gateway of death.

I would also like to mention a friend who is also known to our friends in Berlin, who recently left the physical plane after a long and difficult illness, Mrs. Augusta Berg from Kristiania. She was full of the longing to implement in practical life on the physical plane what shone so beautifully for her heart and soul. We are sure that she will now continue her work in other places, in a way that we also assume for our dear friend Flamme from Hanover.

All those who have passed away, as well as those who have become less well known in the circles of our members, we remember in this solemn hour: Mr. Brizio Aluigi from Milan, Mrs. Julie Neumann from Dresden, Mrs. Emmy Etwein from Cologne, Mrs. E. Harrold from Manchester, and we affirm that we want to be in touch with them in the sense described - with these dear deceased members, who have only changed the form of their way of life for us, that we want to surround them with the powers and thoughts with which we are accustomed to contacting those friends who have left the physical plane. We affirm this volition and remembrance by rising from our seats.

Before the lecture begins, please allow me to reflect for a moment on the solemn ceremony that some of us had to attend to a few days ago in Basel, near the site of our building. Last Saturday [April 4th] at eleven o'clock we committed the earthly remains of our dear friend Christian Morgenstern to the elements in Basel. By a turn of fate that I might almost call miraculous, it fell to me to speak about our dear Christian Morgenstern for the third time in the circle of anthroposophical friends, but to speak in the moments before we committed his earthly remains to the elements.

I have already had the opportunity to point out twice — once in Stuttgart, once in Leipzig on the occasion of a lecture cycle — how we have seen Christian Morgenstern in our anthroposophical center for years with how much heartfelt gratitude and love. So today I would like to say a few words to you, his fellow anthroposophists, before Ms. von Sivers reads some of the wonderful final poems that are still awaiting publication and will be published soon.

It was in Koblenz a number of years ago that Christian Morgenstern first came to our anthroposophical center. We knew him at that time as the poet who had important things to unfold and reveal to the world on two sides. We knew him as the poet who was able to rise so wonderfully into the spiritual worlds, whose soul was born to live in the spiritual worlds. And on the other hand, we knew him as the important satirist who, above all, knew how to strike a spiritual note within German literature that is entirely his own. And for those who are willing to go to the poet's country, to the poet's spiritual realm, in order to achieve understanding, it is important to understand that a mind like Christian Morgenstern's needed the rhythmic transition from the lonely spiritual heights where he knew how to live so wonderfully with his soul, to the way of rising above the disharmony of existence, the weaknesses of existence, which in Christian Morgenstern's case only came to the surface in his own emotional life, and to rise satirically above this disharmony, as it came to him.

Christian Morgenstern carried within himself what he had taken from his hereditary line – his ancestors were painters –: the deepest affinity with nature, but with the spirit of nature. He was so familiar with everything that trembled in his soul, with the most delicate and secret workings of nature, that when his soul allowed what nature spoke to it to resonate, it actually told of the voices of elemental beings, of elemental spirits that wander and weave through nature. And starting from all that a deep human soul can gain from nature through an intimate, kinship-like experience with that nature, from all that, our dear Christian Morgenstern knew how to rise to those moods in relation to the universe where art not only becomes a hymn that echoes the secrets of creation, but where art becomes prayer. And few have truly understood how to transform the poetic tone into the tone of prayer as did Christian Morgenstern. He knew what the poetic, the artistic, the anthroposophical prayer is in the face of the spirituality that permeates nature. If one is able to rise to the spirit of nature in such a way that its word resounds through natural phenomena as through restrained speech, then what the soul would like to breathe out becomes: Yes, I will be among you! And when the soul is able to enliven this yes within itself in such a way that what lives in the soul itself becomes a surging, flowing world, flows out into the universe, knowing itself to be one with it, and when the soul overflows with gratitude for being allowed to live in this universe, to be pardoned, to be blessed by this universe, when all this then becomes a poet's sound, a poet's word, then art arises that sounds to us so often from Christian Morgenstern's poetry. The one who rises in this way, who has to rise through his karma to the spiritual heights of the universe, needs, like the day-awakening time of man, to alternate with the night-sleeping, the other side, which then comes to light in Christian Morgenstern's satire, in that satire, which one only understands completely if one penetrates into the tender, loving soul of Christian Morgenstern. That was his nature, the nature of the anthroposophical poet, the anthroposophical poet who felt deeply, when he joined our ranks in Koblenz.

Now we experienced his ordeal in the last years, during which he increasingly connected everything that was spiritually and emotionally valuable to him with the goals of our spiritual movement. We experienced his ordeal on the one hand and his high poetic upsurge, the wonderful revelations of a magnificent human soul, on the other. Yes, it can be counted among the favorable strokes of fate of our anthroposophical movement that it has been able to have Christian Morgenstern in its midst in recent years. That which we strive to explore, that which we strive to immerse ourselves in with regard to the spiritual worlds, it resounded to us in such magnificent tones from the poems of Christian Morgenstern! He recreated our research in poetry. Anyone who grows so close to our movement that suffering and the highest poetic inspiration become one with the most intimate goals of our anthroposophical life ennobles our movement. And Christian Morgenstern, with all that he was able to elevate within himself, but also with all that he experienced in his ailing body, which offered him so many obstacles in his last years, with all his suffering, he belonged to us because he belonged to us with the full extent of his feeling. How did he accept his suffering, that which confronted him as an obstacle in his physical body, when he felt that what is revealed to us was poetically reflected in him through our ideas, our views, our experiences? And so he was able to speak, to speak of his strength wasting away in his body, that in a sketch that appeared in the last period of his life he found the following words:

“Perhaps it was the same strength that,” he says, “after it had left him on the physical plane, henceforth accompanied his life spiritually and, what she could not give him in the physical world, she now gave him from the spiritual world with a loyalty that did not rest until she saw him not only high up in life, but also on his way up to the heights of life, where death had lost its sting and the world had regained its divine meaning.

That is how he spoke. That is how he understood his relationship to the spiritual world. It is up to us, to whom he belonged, to faithfully cultivate this memory. We do, after all, stand on this point of view: through our spiritual research, death has lost its sting for us all, if we understand it correctly. Yet last week we stood in pain before the earthly remains of Christian Morgenstern. We know that our friend has gone on a journey to a land that our research is revealing more and more to us. He has not left us, he has moved into the spiritual worlds, where he will be more and more intimately connected to us.

But there was something else very special about Christian Morgenstern in his last years. It was something so wonderful for those who were closer to him personally to know that, when he was resting in the Swiss mountains or trying to improve his health, far away from us in space but united with us in spirit. It was often such a sweet, intimate feeling for me, here or there, in this or that city, to know that he was speaking about spiritual things. To know: he dwells in the Swiss mountains, living in the same spiritual heights and traversing the soul lands with me.

Then there was his dear wife, who is with us today, often the messenger who came to the cycles, the lectures, who brought us physical messages from him, who told him what was going on between us. There was an intimate community, an intimate spiritual community between us. And he was up there. Oh, he had learned to live in the loneliness of physical life because he sought the spirit throughout his life and found it. He only needed to be connected to this external world of people through his wife, who was so infinitely understanding, only through her did he need to be connected to this external world of people, which, through the rare understanding she showed him, was able to represent the whole of humanity. It is a wonderful thing in life to be able to witness such intimate understanding between two individuals.

But we were also there in pain at his physical end. When I met him in Zurich during his stay in Switzerland, his voice was already hoarse, his body no longer had the strength to resonate the voice, hoarseness had poured over his speech. But there was another language with Christian Morgenstern, a rare language of those wonderful eyes in which the soul shone, as it can shine through eyes in only a few people; one felt how much he could say to one with his eyes. And one felt in many a moment how much one could say through the telling that was only his. We will no longer be able to speak this language with him. That was our pain, for we loved him so much. But that will also be the reason why we will love him more and more, and will be united with him faithfully, according to our spiritual capacity. He will live among us as an example, and when we ask ourselves: What should the best anthroposophists be like? we will answer with one of the first names that comes to mind: Christian Morgenstern!

In Leipzig, when I was still able to speak in his presence, I was allowed to use a word from those poems in which our world view resonates, which I speak from the bottom of my soul because I feel the truth of this word so deeply: Christian Morgenstern's poetry, of which you will hear some samples later, speaks to us truly not only through that which is expressed in thoughts and feelings - soul lives in them, that lives in them, which we often call aura. His poems have aura! And I could often feel how these poems are living beings when I tried, as Christian Morgenstern himself did, to penetrate into his soul, into his soul, which had become so dear to me that through this love I also gained intimate understanding when I tried to go with my soul to where so many of his wonderful poems lead: to this lonely island! For some of his poems are as if they led us to a lonely island, but to an island where one can feel at one with what flows through the universe. And when Christian Morgenstern, sensing the sounds of the spirit of the world within himself, let his wonderful sounds resound on the island of the soul, he could only be understood by those who knew how to follow him. It has often been said: If you want to understand the poet, you have to go to the poet's country. Christian Morgenstern is a poet of the spirit. If you want to understand this poet of the spirit, you have to go to the lands of the spirit, to the spirit lands. Some of the sounds in the poetry that you will hear later exude an aura; they are as if they had truly already been spoken from the spirit world, by a soul that is fully aware of being in the spirit world, by a soul that was allowed to say:

We had to leave Christian Morgenstern's earthly remains to the elements at that time, when we are expecting that precisely those poems that reveal his highest spiritual aspirations will go out into the world. We expect these poems to touch the innermost depths of many souls, and that many, many souls will experience these artistic creations in their deepest depths in such a way that they will lead the souls to the spiritual realm.

With this, I have told you some of what I would like to say to you from a very personal point of view. He lived in such a way that he expressed a longing in a little poem, a longing of which I would like to say from the bottom of my heart: It has been fulfilled!

He, the enigma-maker, loved the enigmatic poets of the North; he translated the poetry of Ibsen and other poets in such a profound way. And while he was in the north, he grew to love the north. This was a feeling that harmoniously combined with what of German intellectual life resonated in his soul. The great experiencer Nietzsche, one of the most German poets, Lagarde: it was their views, their impulses that his soul so gladly delved into. All this was crowded together in Christian Morgenstern's soul. And in a moment, which was probably born out of a mood that is revealed in the lines I allowed myself to read to you twice, in such a moment those lines were created:

To Niblum I want to be buried,
on the edge between marsh and geest...

I want to rest in Niblum
from all of the present.
And there on my stone house, write for me
only the name and: “Lest Lagarde!”
Yes, only the two things small and large:
this request and then just my name.
Just the name and: “Read Lagarde!”

The islet of the motherland there, no,
I will not disdain that.
Let the North Sea take me home there soon
with steep, tumbling seas –
the mother sea, the mother flood...
oh, how good it will be to rest down there, far away from German events!

Much has changed in our feelings in the last few years. But we, in spirit, we see him, abandoned to the elements, on the edge of physical being, on the shore of physical being. And we see - in a still higher way than he was able to express it in those lines - taken up by the mother flood, the highest human home, this soul, which was so much at home in the motherland of the spirit, the human soul. Yes, we may say it: he is buried where he desired to be buried. But he shall be buried, buried so that this burial will be a constant resurrection in our hearts, in our souls: in them he wants to live! And his name will be written on our souls. And those of us who do not just want to be connected to the spiritual life that we have dedicated ourselves to on the outside, but rather very deeply within, will understand when I now present each of them with a very personal request: may the souls of our friends be allowed to deepen their anthroposophical experience of what they can experience and deepen within themselves through the artistic rebirth of anthroposophy in the poetry of Christian Morgenstern.

So let us joyfully, united with his wife, who so understandingly and lovingly stood by him and continues to do so, stand by her faithfully in the cultivation of his memory. We want to be united with our friend in spirit, we want to read his name often on the memorial that is to be erected for him in our hearts, and then we know that we will never do so without the deepest spiritual gain if we follow the word, which I now change his own words as my deepest wish: When we see the name Christian Morgenstern written on the memorial stone of our hearts, then let us take this, changing his words, as an invitation: Let us read, let us read Christian Morgenstern often!

Today we would like to share some information with you about our friend Christian Morgenstern, who passed away recently. First, I will speak about Christian Morgenstern's career as it developed before he joined our society as a member; then Ms. von Sivers will recite some of his poems from this pre-Theosophical period. After the recital of these poems, I will then take the liberty of speaking to you, so to speak, about Christian Morgenstern's time as a member of the Anthroposophical Society, and Ms. von Sivers will essentially recite poems by Christian Morgenstern from his Anthroposophical period, which will be presented to the public in a forthcoming collection of poems by our friend.

Not only can we talk about Christian Morgenstern as a loyal, dear and energetic member of our society and our intellectual movement, we can also talk about Christian Morgenstern in this branch for the simple reason that he was connected to it in the sense that the chairman and leader of this branch, Dr. Ludwig Noll, was a friend and doctor to him in a loyal, friendly, devoted manner for many years.

In 1909, I received an objectively amiable and modest letter from Christian Morgenstern, in which he applied for membership of our society, the society in which he then expressed that he hoped to find that which had been working in his soul throughout his life in terms of feeling and emotion, and which had always formed the basic tone and nuance of a large part of his poetic work. And it is fair to say that when we consider the overall mood of Christian Morgenstern's soul, we see that hardly any other member of our world in 1909 could have connected with us more fully, more wholeheartedly, than Christian Morgenstern.

Christian Morgenstern has found his way into this incarnation on Earth so that one can literally see from the way he found his way how this soul strove from spiritual heights to find the kind of embodiment that was appropriate for this particular individuality. One would like to recognize in Christian Morgenstern a soul that could not fully decide to find its way into the directly materialistic life of the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, a soul of which one would like to say that it imposed a certain reserve on itself at the time of embodiment, as it were, to remain behind in the spiritual world with certain powers and to look at the world of the earth, always imbued with that point of view that arises when one is half rooted in the spiritual world. So Christian Morgenstern could hardly find a more suitable succession of generations here on this earth than that of his painting ancestors. His father was a painter and came, in turn, from a family of painters. The family was accustomed to viewing what the Earth's orbit offers from the standpoint of the spiritualized artist, and they loved all the beauties of nature and everything that human life produces as its blossoms, even if the foundations are materialistic. And so Christian Morgenstern was placed, as it were, in a hereditary substance, through which a certain relationship to nature developed in him, since he came from a family of landscape painters. Thus, what I would call the relationship to nature was placed in him, which was particularly strengthened by the fact that he was allowed to travel with his parents as a small child. And so we see Christian Morgenstern growing up, and the poetic urge awakening in him early on. We see him developing this poetic urge to such an extent that he, I would say, withdraws with his soul life to a lonely island and looks at everything around him from the perspective of this lonely island. Then verses flow from this poetic soul, tender verses that seem to be born out of the soul itself, which still rests half in the spiritual, and other verses that easily show, when one looks into such a soul, that they must also flow from the same soul; other verses that have absorbed all the disharmony that one encounters when one looks at the external life of our present time. Thus, in addition to the poems that rise up in the mood of prayer, there have also arisen poems that the outer world knows almost only from Christian Morgenstern: those sarcastic, ironic, humoristic poems that such a soul must breathe out, just as the physical lungs must breathe out carbonated air in addition to inhaling pure air. Thus, in this twofold breathing process of the spiritual life, such a soul had to rise, as it were, in prayer to the most sublime wisdoms and beauties of existence in the world, while on the other hand it had to look at the unnaturalness, the discrepancies, the disharmony in the world around it, which struck such a spiritual soul so powerfully that she can do nothing but rise above this discrepancy with a light, fleeting humor.

Christian Morgenstern will be one of those artists by whom it will be recognized how intimately connected the prayerful moment on the one hand and the slightly humorous on the other are, especially in the spiritually attuned soul. Indeed, through this prayer-like quality, which elevates his poetry to the point of being prayer-like in mood, Christian Morgenstern was predestined to ultimately connect his life's journey with the life's journey of our spiritual movement. This prayer-like mood in all its scope and meaning is already evident in the poems from his earliest youth. Christian Morgenstern's prayer-like mood is threefold in its structure towards the world.

What soul can pray? One might be inclined to ask, and this is often the case with Christian Morgenstern's soul. And so he feels the answer to this question of the soul: that soul can pray which is capable of letting the greatness, the sublimity, the divine spirituality of the universe have such an effect on it that the mood of saying yes to this greatness, this sublimity, this fullness of wisdom escapes it. And that then, from this saying yes to the lofty phenomena of the world, the second link is added in the soul, which can be called: to merge with one's own soul in the universe, to submerge oneself in the greatness and beauty and wisdom of existence. — The third link is added, which Christian Morgenstern felt when he brought the idea before his soul: to be blessed by the greatness, sublimity and wisdom and the love content of the universe! - To be able to say yes, to be able to merge into the universe, to feel blessed as an individual soul by the wisdom, beauty and love content of the universe: that is the mood that Christian Morgenstern as a poet already knew how to breathe into many of his earlier poems.

He was sixteen years old when his contemplative mind was confronted with the question that has occupied us so thoroughly in our spiritual movement: the great question of the repeated lives of the human soul. He relentlessly struggled for clarity in this area.

When he was twenty-one years old, all that emerged from Nietzsche, the great questioner, from the personality that so tragically and yet fruitlessly wrestled with all the riddles that confronted man in the last third of the nineteenth century if he really took life and time seriously. Christian Morgenstern himself says that he felt a passionate love for Nietzsche's struggle for many years. Then he came across another mind, a mind of which he speaks the beautiful words: “The year 1901 saw me through the ‘German Writings’ of Paul de Lagarde. He appeared to me... as the second most influential German of the last decades, which was also true in that his entire nation had gone its way without him.” Now Christian Morgenstern immersed himself in Lagarde's ‘German Writings,’ those writings that are not written in Nietzschean style. One would like to say that they are not written in the manner that turns away from life in order to somehow gain a standpoint outside of life and to observe life from there, but Christian Morgenstern also found the other side, which is embodied in Paul de Lagarde: the side that directly engages with life. Lagarde is a mind that, with a keenly penetrating soul, comprehended everything that struggles in the present for reform, for transformation, in order to restore health to this life. And the thoughts that Lagarde, out of his erudition and deep experience of life, tried to shape in order to help the life of the German spirit are endlessly ramified. This has an effect on minds like Christian Morgenstern's, who in their loneliness feel alone with minds like Nietzsche and Lagarde. Nietzsche has since become popular, Lagarde has not yet become popular, but Christian Morgenstern felt a shared loneliness with this mind. So we can understand that when yet another mood was added to his loneliness, Christian Morgenstern found strange words for what he longed for in his future and the future of those with whom his soul felt a kinship in this incarnation.

The uniqueness of his soul then led Christian Morgenstern to immerse himself in the great Nordic mystery-seekers. He became acquainted with Ibsen, the mystery-seeker; he translated “Peer Gynt” and “Brand” and felt so intimately connected in his soul to the great mystery-seeker of the North.

But he also felt elevated above what directly surrounded him in German culture. It is truly permissible to discuss such things on anthroposophical ground and to assume that the dear listeners will set aside all one-sided political or patriotic sentiment and feel transported into a higher sphere when one points to words in which Christian Morgenstern foresaw what he foresaw for his future and the future of those he loved, even though he felt isolated from them. That is why the words that Christian Morgenstern wrote six years later, in 1907, after he had met Paul de Lagarde and a few years after he had immersed himself in Ibsen and translated some of his works, in 1907, have such a profound effect:

I want to be buried in Niblum,
on the edge between marsh and geest.

I want to rest in Niblum
“from all of the present.
And there, on my stone house, write for me
only the name and: “Lest Lagarde!”
Yes, just the two things small and large:
This request and then just my name.
Only the name and: “Lest Lagarde!”

The islet of the motherland there, no,
I will not disdain that.
Why not let the North Sea take me home there soon
with steep, tumbling seas
the mother sea, the mother flood...
oh how good it will be to rest down there,
far away from German events!

That was the soul, which then gradually grew, grew into that mood that overcame him at the time, when he was thirty-five years old, where he felt within himself: man and nature are of the same spirit.

Then came an evening, as though arranged by karma, one would say, when the Gospel of St. John lay before this soul. A new mood came over Christian Morgenstern, for only now, after this preparation, did he believe he really understood the Gospel of St. John. Now this soul was in a mood that it could say of itself: I feel incorporated into the broad, wide stream of the spiritual universe; I feel that which has gone through all times as a symbol of this feeling and must touch us quite particularly in modern times, since we feel something of the deepest basis of the world and of man. Contemplating the world around, the soul can break out, if it is prepared, into the deeply significant words: That art Thou! From the Gospel of St. John the wisdom of “That art Thou” flowed for the soul of Christian Morgenstern. He could say of himself, sitting in a kaflehouse: “So, from his marble table, his cup in front of him, to contemplate those who come and go, sit down and talk, and to see through the mighty window those outside drifting back and forth, like a school of fish behind the glass wall of a large container, - and then and when to indulge in the idea: That's you! And to see them all, not knowing who they are, who is talking to himself there, as she, and who recognizes her as herself from my eyes and only as her from her own eyes! “

Then another mood arose, a mood that many would wish would spread throughout the world. By then, Christian Morgenstern was already known as a poet in his late thirties. He lived as a person who had learned to empathize with the “That's you” and then felt a mood come over his soul, which he expressed in the words: “And yet such knowledge was only a surface knowledge and therefore ultimately still doomed to infertility.”

Do you feel, my dear friends, the humility, the inner, true humility of the soul, which only this soul really prepared to penetrate into the secrets of life!

Christian Morgenstern felt he had become two people. He stood at the gates of spiritual science. He stood at the gates of spiritual science and called everything that had gone before a “superficial knowledge” that was therefore “doomed to be ultimately fruitless”.

First listen to the sounds that that Christian Morgenstern's soul wrested from itself in his pre-anthroposophical period, then I will say a few words about his anthroposophical period, about what he spoke of in the very last days of his life on earth, that he had the only thing in him that never failed him in life, and of which he knew that he could never fail.

Recitation by Marie von Sivers:

Mittagsstille - Eins und alles - An die Wolken
Sommernacht im Hochwald - Präludium - Mondenstimmung
Morgenandacht - Inmitten der großen Stadt

On April 4 of this year, we had to hand over Christian Morgenstern's earthly remains for cremation near our Dornach building in Basel. As I spoke the words on that occasion before Christian Morgenstern's cremation, many conversations came vividly to mind that had taken place after Christian Morgenstern had found himself in our society in 1909, under the aforementioned conditions, of which I spoke earlier. In those conversations, there were often words that passed from him to me and vice versa that touched on profound questions of existence, as far as they can touch people. At the same time, these questions – and this was connected with Christian Morgenstern's recent entry into our movement – pointed to the great problems of existence, but which, on the other hand, through the struggles through the struggles and the struggles that Christian Morgenstern's soul had gone through, had a directly individual character. There again emerged all the feelings that Christian Morgenstern had gone through, for example, in his present earthly career, when for years he wanted to orient himself on Nietzsche, I may say, for the great questions of life.

From many a word he spoke in intimate conversation, one could see how the understanding of a human spirit like Christian Morgenstern, who himself had to struggle so titanically, differs from that of a soul that passes over the struggles of other souls on earth more superficially. And I may well say, without committing any kind of immodesty: I was allowed to believe that I could talk to Christian Morgenstern about Nietzsche in the way that Christian Morgenstern's soul might have desired, despite the fact that his thoughts, which he had also expressed about Nietzsche, had emerged from the depths of his soul. After all, it had taken me fourteen years, from 1888 to 1902, to gain some clarity in my own soul through Nietzsche. I knew myself what struggles and conquests it takes to gain orientation about all that a mind like Nietzsche has thrown into our time. I knew the tones that the soul struck, from the mockery and scorn itself, to much of what Nietzsche expressed, to loving admiration – I knew all the struggles and overcoming that one has to go through. And again, when Christian Morgenstern spoke about his beloved Paul de Lagarde, I was allowed to have my say there too. I had a soul before me that had found support in Lagarde in many ways. I may say that almost twenty years before, indeed even more than twenty years before, I had been able to see how Lagarde's “German Writings” affected at least a small group of people, so that these people received inner soul substance through Lagarde. I had, however, seen how Paul de Lagarde was drawn into a kind of national politics in this circle, but I had also been able to see the strength of Lagarde's thoughts, how the power of his thoughts could find its way into human souls when these souls needed direction and purpose in life. That had long since passed for me, when the lonely soul, the soul that Paul de Lagarde shared with me, encountered Christian Morgenstern.

And so I was able to get to know Christian Morgenstern's soul really, really well at that moment, when it stood at the gates of anthroposophy. It was at that time that Christian Morgenstern, after having enthusiastically participated in various of our anthroposophical events, also joined us on a trip up to his beloved North Country. I could then see how the severe collapse of his health and body approached. Often he had to think again and again, and he did so reluctantly, about how he could help his body to survive for a few more years on earth. Then came the time when he had to be withdrawn from us, when he lived for some time in the high mountains of Switzerland to find relief from his suffering in the fresh, free mountain air. He had previously found a wife who was also deeply involved in our movement and who now accompanied him into his involuntary solitude – for now he would have liked to have been sociable, would have liked to have been with our movement. Then came the time when one was allowed to think – while we were trying to communicate what had been allotted to us to the human souls – that up there in the Swiss high mountains lived one who ceaselessly sought to marry his poetic power to that which was to come to light in our spiritual current, that up there lived one in whom, in an individually unique way, what we are trying to experience in our spiritual-scientific movement, was reborn from the power of poetry. A connecting link was the wife, who in the end was the only link on the physical plane between his lonely soul life in the Swiss high mountains and our society. He could see how his wife brought messages from him down and carried up what she had taken in when he repeatedly asked her to stop by at this or that event so that he too could participate in what is to be conveyed through spiritual science to the culture of our time and to human spiritual life in general. He had indeed found the direct refreshment for his soul in the soul of his faithful and devoted friend and wife, who so deeply understood him. Through her, he saw the world of the physical plane. And it was strengthening for those who were allowed to participate in his soul life that especially in this soul found such an artistic-poetic response to what moves through our souls and what we believe is so important to humanity.

Then, after we had arranged this, I met him in Zurich when I returned from a lecture tour in Italy. The destruction of his body was so advanced that he could only speak softly. But in Christian Morgenstern's soul lived something that, I would like to say, almost made the physical plane dispensable, even for external speech. That was what was so very much before one's mind, even at the moment when one saw the transfigured soul of Christian Morgenstern escape from earthly existence in April of this year. That soul, which has been set free, set free in the development of its spiritual powers precisely through death, has truly not been lost to itself and to us: it has been truly ours ever since. But one thing could stand before us painfully, for that we had indeed lost: that peculiar language that spoke from those eyes that bore witness to such intimacy, which so wonderfully expressed in mute language the intimacy with which one would so like to see the spiritual scientific world view imbued. And the other was the sweet, intimate smile of Christian Morgenstern, which beamed out to you as if from a spiritual world, and which bore witness in every feature to the deep intimacy with which he was connected with all that is spiritual, especially where the spiritual expresses itself intimately and deeply.

When I met him in Zurich, he was able to give me those of his poems that arose, so to speak, from the marriage within him of his poetic power with the anthroposophical spiritual current. And again one saw, again one heard from Christian Morgenstern's poetry the great insights into world evolution, into past embodiments of the earth, into the revival of the forces and entities of past world bodies on our earth body, - brought into poetic form that which is striven for within our spiritual current. He himself had attained that which appears to us as the pinnacle of our anthroposophical research, speaking from his tender, intimate and yet so strong soul: the being imbued with Christ, of whom an idea is gained through the spiritual-scientific tradition. Truly, there lived, embodied in this frail earthly body, our world view, strong and powerful, inspired and spiritualized. And truly, deeply true, the words that Christian Morgenstern spoke about his relationship to this world view appear, after he first remembers the legacy of suffering that was inherited from his mother, that made him physically weak in life, that made him weaker and weaker in the end. After he has remembered all this, he speaks the words: “Perhaps it was the same power that, after leaving him on the physical plane, accompanied him spiritually from then on and, what she could not give him in the physical world, she now gave him from the spiritual world with a loyalty that did not rest until she had seen him not only high up in life, but also up to the heights of life, on the path where death had lost its sting and the world had regained its divine meaning.

So he was with us, and so he was ours. And so he wrote those poems that we will hear about later, which are to be introduced by a poem from his earlier period, in which his predestination for the world view that was then revealed to him is atmospherically expressed, when he had so intimately connected with us in terms of his views and spirit.

And then he appeared again, somewhat strengthened, at our anthroposophical events. We were able to experience the joy that at the end of last year in Stuttgart, his poems, which were closest to his heart, could be spoken by Fräulein von Sivers in his presence, and we were able to witness what was going on in his soul, which, I may say, made such a moving impression on me when we were still able to talk about him and recite his poetry in his presence. It was then that he found the moving words in a letter he addressed to Miss von Sivers:

“It was about four weeks ago, when I was selecting appropriate pieces from my various earlier collections, that I was overcome by a feeling that was very close to me at the moment. I said to myself – in view of the loss of my voice and in view of the fact that right now invitation after invitation is approaching me to read publicly – that these little songs and rhythms would probably never reach human ears as I had felt them. For I relived the wondrous bliss with which each truly vital stanza had been allowed to come into existence, and I said to myself: this state of mind will never again be conjured up by me, or by anyone else. At that time, as so often, I forgot the loving understanding of kindred souls, who are able to create a similar state within themselves, simply out of warmth for the work of art in question and the intuitive perception that they have for the impulses from which and under which it may have formed. On that unforgettable November 24, 1913, you punished me for my terrible forgetfulness in the most beautiful and tender way. For someone had entered that isolated circle of which our dear doctor spoke, had willingly followed the 'lonely one' to his 'island' and could now, as it were, with his own voice, reproduce the artless melodies that were found there and presented themselves.

From now on, I can be confident that one or another of my modest productions may also come to people as living sound – since I received it from you for the second time and thus a greeting from my youth and, on the other hand, a reminder to always serve you pure and high people and the ideals, which want to become truth under the constant sacrificial help of our beloved teacher through you, better and stronger.

With heartfelt veneration and gratitude!

Christian Morgenstern.

After all that we have since experienced, you will understand, my dear friends, that we would very much like to become faithful executors of his intentions with regard to the point that Christian Morgenstern touches on in this letter.

Then it was again in Leipzig, when we were able to give him a New Year's greeting, three months before his death. I spoke then, after once again letting the poems of his last period take effect on my soul, some of which you will hear about later – I spoke then a word that arose in me directly as an actual feeling from the poems. I spoke a word that I would like to repeat as follows: I could see how Christian Morgenstern, with his whole spirit, one might say, lived full of content in our world view, which had taken on a very individual form in him, so that what he gave was a gift for us, and we would never have had to think that he received it from us: we felt so happy in the mood that he gave us back from within himself what our world view had inspired in him. But not only that, something else also radiated from his poems. And I could not express it any differently than by saying: his poems have an aura! One feels the anthroposophical life and anthroposophical way of thinking directly flowing out of them like an aura. One also experiences something that lies not in the words but between the words, between the lines, and is directly auric life. — I was able to express it at the time as a feeling that actually arose for me: these poems have an aura!

I now know why, only now, why I said this word back then. And some of you, or perhaps all of you, my dear friends, who listened to the words of my lecture yesterday, will know why I only now know the “why”. These poems, yes, they have an aura – that is what I had to say when I was allowed to speak about him for the second time on the occasion of the reading of his poems in our circle in Leipzig in his presence. At that time, just at the beginning of this year, it was a happy time for Christian Morgenstern, I may say so. When I saw him in his room in Leipzig, it was strange to see how - yes, how healthy, how inwardly strong this soul was in this rotten body, and how this soul felt so healthy, so healthy in the spiritual life at that very time, as never before. Then it was that the words came to me that I had to speak before his cremation: “This soul truly testifies to the victory of the spirit over all corporeality!”

He worked towards achieving this victory throughout the years in which he was so closely connected with us through our spiritual movement. He achieved this victory not in arrogance, but in all modesty. Looking up to him, as his soul was released from earthly life, I was allowed to speak the words in Basel: “He was ours, he is ours, and he will be ours!” At that time, when I spoke of him for the third time, karma, I may say, brought about in a remarkable way that I was precisely at the place where he was laid to rest, in the vicinity of our building at Dornach, when his earthly remains were committed to the elements.

And so, after he had written those words, he had passed away from his lonely grave, still in his earthly life, through our spiritual current. And truly, one can perhaps feel it if, with a small change, reference may be made to the words that were shared earlier, which were spoken by him years ago, before he united with our spiritual current. We can now rightly say: we seek him in the spiritual realm, to which we

are seeking the path. 'We found a path' is also the title of his last

collection of poems, which will be published soon. In the spirit land we see him safe. We look up to him. We want to learn gradually, we want to learn to recognize what an important individuality was embodied in him. But that is not to be spoken of today. But what we feel deeply, as if it were written on his spiritual tombstone, which we want to set for him in our hearts, that will be the name we have come to love, with which we want to associate many, many things. It may stand as the only emblem on his spiritual gravestone. We will associate much with this name after he has become ours, after we have recognized him. Therefore, my dear friends, you will feel that I am being sincere when I say, building on the previous words:

In the spiritual realm we find him embedded,
at the edge, between the earthly and the spiritual.
There he works, there he does not rest,
there he continues to work as a spirit among spirits,
for all the present.

But we write on his spiritual house his name, which has become dear to us, and the words that we want to feel deeply:

Read Christian Morgenstern!

I myself would like to express this request in connection with the name Christian Morgenstern:

Read Christian Morgenstern!

He found his motherland there in spiritual heights, the spiritual world, the mother flood, brought him home. He has returned to his homeland, but to the homeland in which our soul is rooted with its strongest powers, rooted even in the moments, in the celebratory moments of life, when it must feel distant from all mere sensual events.

This is what I would like to say here, in words that arise from my own spiritual contemplation of Christian Morgenstern, before I present the lecture of the poems that he left us as a beautiful emblem of the effectiveness of our world view in a human soul that has wrestled and fought a great deal, that has fought as a spirit for victory over the body, that has experienced many people and has experienced many people and many world views, and who, even in the last days of her life here on earth, was able to speak the words:

“Actually, there is only one thing in which I have not, not even in the slightest, gone astray...”

Christian Morgenstern meant the world view to which we also profess ourselves.

But we want to be convinced, my dear friends, that this view remains with him for the life in the spirit that he leads and to which we want to look up.

Recitation by Marie von Sivers:

Sunrise Prayer · To a doubter · Moon at noon · Of two roses · Waterfall at night · Light is love · How do I break free from YOUR spell · There, take this · I lift up my heart for you · I am born of God like all being.

Is it not, in essence, my dear friends, all of us who are here together for the purpose of our construction, not strange karma, now, in a harrowing event, to experience the connection between karma and seemingly external coincidence? We can already understand this when we take everything we have experienced in anthroposophy so far and turn it into a conviction: that human lives that are taken away early, that have not gone through the worries and sorrows, nor the temptations of life, that such human lives are forces in the spiritual world that have a certain relationship to the entire human life, that are there to have an effect on these human lives. I often said: the earth is not there as a mere vale of tears, as something where man is transferred, as it were, as a punishment, out of a higher world, the earth is there as a place of learning for human souls! - But if a life is short, with only a short period of learning, then there is just enough strength to work down from the spiritual world and to flow away...

We then also recognize the lasting value of the spiritual world's effects in such a life, which is snatched from us, like the good boy who was snatched from us for the physical plane. We honor him, we celebrate his physical departure in a dignified way, when we learn, learn a great deal, in the indicated and in many other ways from what has been experienced in the last days. Anthroposophy is learned by feeling and sensing. Then, when we face such a case, we look up into those spheres where the soul of the child whose body we have today given back to Mother Earth has been transported. What is now being sent out by many anthroposophical souls to people who sacrifice their personalities can also be spoken to those who have died for the earthly plan with a small change. For they too are reached by the request that we speak. These requests apply to the living and also to the dead. And when we are convinced that the soul has already left the body, then we speak the mantram, which most of our friends here are familiar with, with a small change, with the small change with which I will now forward it to the dear, good 7beo, to his soul, as it lives on in the spheres as a sphere-man:

Spirit of his soul, active guardian,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To your trusted spheresman,
So that, united with your power,
Our request may helpfully shine
On the soul that lovingly seeks it.

Dear fellow sufferers!

After the kind words of the pastor, I have to be the interpreter for those hearts that have been lovingly received by the dear one who has passed away from us. First, I would like to address my dear, dear partner, dear father and dear children, and then all of you who are gathered here to accompany the earthly shell of our beloved friend to her final resting place.

It has been a short time since we walked the same path and promised the dear companion of the deceased to share her pain, to share the pain that we did not want to comfort her about, but rather promised her that we would share it.

And today we are in a position to have to try to keep the promise of sharing the increased, the magnified pain with our dear friend and with the others with whom the dear departed was so close. Over time, he has become ever closer and closer to us, drawing on the most profound human strengths, the strengths that we can come closest to with another human being, the best strengths of our spiritual striving.

This time, too, I would like to express nothing more with these words than I did when we stood at the grave of our dear child: that we want to bear, faithfully bear the pain that so justifiably follows the cover to the grave, that will last, but that must be borne bravely and courageously in the knowledge that from the spiritual worlds, where the human soul is received after death, space and time separate us, but that nothing separates us from the spiritual worlds when souls want to be connected to these spiritual worlds through the powers they carry within themselves and through which they can, in faithful connection with these worlds, triumph over space and time. We knew our friend Albert Faiss in such striving. Years ago he came into our midst, tested, severely tested by the outer life. It is fair to say that his lot was work, hard work and laborious striving. But when you got to know his soul, how it lived, how it looked out of those kind, faithful eyes so confidently, you saw that this soul had found support and security in itself, was able to bear heavy, laborious work and worries of life because it knew itself to be firmly on the secure ground of spiritual life.

The one we loved had to travel far away, and even in the far distance he did not find his goal and rest, but in his own heart, in his own soul, he found it. He found it, and we appreciated the strong cohesion of the striving that he developed in his soul, with our own striving. We appreciated what must be so infinitely valuable to us, my dear mourners.

If someone finds the connection with us that our friend Faiss found, it is because this connection is already prefigured in the eternal grounds, because he sought with us only what he always sought in his own soul. This also gave our friend that wonderfully beautiful, unified nature that those who came close to him could observe in him again and again.

He had chosen a profession that brought him into contact with nature. He had managed to make his profession, at least in his mind, into what every profession should be and what can be made of every profession from the security of the intellectual life. He managed to achieve higher aspirations within his profession. When he spoke in this way and wanted to penetrate the forces that the earth develops to produce food in his profession that could best serve humanity, when he inquired which plant was better suited for this or that human need, then one saw how he understood how to develop service to humanity out of his profession. It was a beautiful part of his nature that he never thought of pursuing his profession for personal reasons, but tried to make it into a service to humanity and thus into a form of worship. He tried to imbue human activity with the consciousness of divine activity.

That is our task, and our friend Albert Faiss devoted himself to this task with heartfelt dedication, with all the strength he had at his disposal. That which lived so in his soul, which he knew so lovingly and intimately to penetrate with his whole being, and everything that lived so in him, oh, that brought him the love, the intimate love of those who lived near him. We all know Frau Faiss, we know how she was united with the dear departed in intimate love and common striving, we appreciate the harmonious interaction of these two people, and since we know this, we will also find ways to share with her the pain for which there are hardly any words of comfort.

I can think of no better way to express the wonderful beauty with which the powers expressed in our friend's soul were able to acquire active love than to say a few words about the child who has fallen asleep.

When the father went to war and the mother was alone with the children, the dear departed child – the oldest of them – spoke as she worked faithfully by her mother's side: Now that father is gone, I must work especially hard to be a support to my mother. That is laborious love, such as is acquired by the noble powers of mind that the dear departed possessed. This child will now receive the soul of the departed friend in an appropriate way; they will work together in the spiritual world, and we should unite with them in the spirit that we believe we are grasping.

Strong are the thoughts of the dear ones who send them from the other side to those they have left behind; they expect us to direct our soul's gaze to them. We will often think about how the dead, the so-called dead, can know how the souls here look after them, how the souls here are united with them. So let us cultivate the loving service with the deceased in intimate, loyal friendship with those left behind, knowing that he was united with us in the same striving.

Yes, dear friend, dear soul, you knew how to walk the path of the spirit from your very nature. You did not take a step in your daily life here on earth without knowing that everything your eyesight embraces, your hands grasp, is given by God the Father, the eternal God, in all your earthly work. You knew that you were woven into the eternal of God.

And so was your work, dear friend, dear soul, that it had to seek for the knowledge that was appropriate to it, that it might be imbued with the essence that first gave meaning to the earth, with the essence of Christ. You knew that. And that is what you sought when you took your last earthly steps in this region, when you wanted to unfold your activity in harmony with our spiritual striving near the building through which we want to develop this spiritual striving.

So you sought in your own way to penetrate the eternal in you, already during your life on earth with that power that strives to grasp the meaning of the earth, and you sought to gain that knowledge which strives to gain the meaning of life on earth, which the Christ Jesus has given. In this way you knew that you were connected with your eternal, divine part in Christ Jesus himself, knew that you were interwoven with him. And so you also knew that you would one day die in Christ Jesus, and knew that you would carry the aspiration to live with the spirit, with which we are all united, through the gateway of death.

So you lived with God, lived with Christ, so you died in Christ and so your soul will be united with him and we may look up to you in spirit.

In this consciousness of being united with You, we often direct our thoughts to the realms in which Your soul is now active, for we believe that the dead are alive, alive with us, as they were in earthly life when they were still connected to us in the physical body. And we know that What we now feel for him is also interwoven here on earth with what flows down from the spiritual planes into which the dead have entered. United with Your powers, we know those powers, those soul powers, which are beyond space and time.

We give you this as a promise to stand faithfully by those you have left behind here, with whom we will try to bear their pain, looking up to you, who will receive from the soul of the dear child with whom we are united. In eternal spheres, not only in death, we feel united with you, and we may, full of this consciousness, call out to your soul: farewell, farewell in spirit, and let us, as far as we are able, live with you!