Our Dead

GA 261 — 30 October 1910, Berlin

Eulogies Given at the 1910 General Meeting

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.