Our Dead

GA 261 — 22 November 1915, Ulm

Eulogy at the Cremation of Sophie Stinde

We look up to the spirit that has been snatched from our earthly existence. We look up out of the pain that has to arise in these days from the roots of that deep joy with which we worked for so long at our dear friend's side for what is dear and valuable to us in the world. From the beautiful soul traits of our dear friend and from what the affection of my soul for her has poured into my own soul in the last hours, I will try to send our feelings up to her.

Guide you from earthly existence
To the spiritual sun-land
The beings whose reflection we
in Thy work;
They lived for us as fruits of existence
in all that Thou on the paths of the earth
in strength and love didst create. Thou lookest from the heights of the spirit
into the hearts of Thy friends;
Thy soul's gaze meets
The blossoms of thy works of love;
They shine through the pain
In that bright light
That thou didst create around their souls. The certain loyalty in the rightly recognized:
It was the first spiritual being
That inspired all thy deeds; —
Whoever sensed this in You, Gained boundless trust in Your own work, which he Was allowed to unite with Your work. The sense of truth, which unerringly Arose from Your clear soul,
He was the second being,
To whom everything was allowed to approach, What on the paths of human life He could in pure heart's mildness
The strictest duty act conceal. So you stood in our midst,
In your being fully embodying
The meaning of the work to which we live;
The place in the mind that you
With your power invigorated:
In your way, No other will ever be able to revive it. It will have to appear empty to friends in the world of sense;
But bright will shine from it
The spiritual flame that you
With your being inflame in it.
It will shine in the mirror of your friends' souls
In the powerful reflection.
The eternal human spirit, Which your earthly shell
Lovingly revealed to us,
Hear him from that etheric height,
He now connects himself,
The soul's ear as a word of comfort proclaims
To friends who are filled with deep sorrow: "I will unite with your earthly work
What in the spiritual realms
The soul gives itself in powers.
So the bond that in the time being
Could bind me to you
The eternity of the power of the seal
reveal the power of the seal in light and truth.

Dear friends! From the deep bliss that we were able to feel during our many years of living together, in a way that was so exemplary and commendable on the part of the one who left us, arises the pain, that pain that can only be felt and cannot be expressed in words and should not be expressed at all. From this place we look up to send the last greeting to the body, to have it as a starting point to that never-ending union we have with our dear, precious friend.

And how does it present itself to our soul, this image that has been at our side for so many years from the earthly shell of the dearly departed? We look back on this entire life, which has now come to an end for this incarnation, and we must look in awe at the unique, unified greatness of this life, which, through its own nature, has created an enduring earthly monument in our hearts and everywhere it was allowed to work. For this dear friend chose her earthly surroundings as if selecting them for herself, surroundings from which so many human souls emerged that are so similar to her in their general appearance. From her austere region of Nordic Central Europe, they have emerged, the many similarly natured natures with the often so austere-seeming outer shell and with the deep, deep inwardness, which the heart's mildness and warmth is so beautifully able to imbue through the rigor and sense of duty in life. And so she came into our midst, our dear friend, more than ten years ago. She came into our midst as the very embodiment of the general image of humanity that I have just hinted at, a human image that took on a very special character in the family from which the dear woman came. Years ago, when we were privileged to step aside our friend, we greeted in her Julius Stinde's sister. We greeted two members of that family, in which has ruled a religious belief that constantly struggled for clarity and yet penetrated into all depths, a deep yearning for the source of life, for solving the riddles of life. Not long after our dear friend entered our midst, we had to join her in her grief at the death of her brother, Julius Stinde. And to us, who were close to her, she really seemed, in the years we were privileged to work with her, like another human aspect of the essence of Julius Stinde himself. Together with him, she was one of those natures who know how to respond sympathetically to everything that has to be taken for granted in everyday life, that has to be done to please people, to bring people so very close to humanity. That was indeed the deepest core of Julius Stinde's being. But in this genuine humanizing of everyday life, of what lives directly in nature and the human environment around us, a deep urge for spiritual secrets mingled with these natures in particular. And it is one of the most beautiful gifts that our friend, who has now left the physical plane, showed me in those days, that she was able to show me what her brother had written down in notes about the spiritual worlds, out of the attitude in which his dear sister had been connected with us for so many years. Behind all of Julius Stinde's external work lay his deep connection to those worlds that we want to work our way into through our spiritual striving. Behind all of the external work that he has done for what people need for the right purpose in life lay the profound sense of research for the unknown worlds that are unknown to physical perception and physical knowledge. And one would like to say: so has this meaning, which remained hidden from the world in the soul of our dear, expensive friend, been spoken of in all its fullness and in all its scope.

And she dedicated all that she was able to achieve in this earthly life, especially in the last decades, to this attitude. She devoted everything in her power to this life in the spiritual world, so that her work truly brought countless hearts that mild warmth they need, and gave countless souls that strength they crave. And our friend herself became ever more refined in her love for the spirit and ever brighter and clearer in her knowledge of the spirit. There was such a yearning in all her nature for the spiritual that it could find the way, this inner way to the connection with the Christ, so that this Christ would not only reach the deepest human feelings but also the highest human thoughts. Our dear friend was such that the Christ could come alive for her, that she was able to perceive the Christ impulse in all the individual things that human work and human strength bring forth in the development of the earth. And so, in her striving for the Christ, she found this living Christ, who lives in everything and yet, as a single entity, can only be found through the deepest effort of the spirit. Thus she stood, uniting her striving for this Christ with our own striving, making us happy who were allowed to rule by her side. She came to us, she laid down the day's work, which she had so hopefully accomplished until then, in favor of our work. Those who today still immerse themselves in the lovingly speaking, deeply revealing landscapes of our friend know how nobly formed her artistic nature was, and they also know what treasures of human strength she has brought into our ranks by uniting her work with ours with such artistic sense, with such deep artistic depth of soul. And so she joined us, joined us like someone who, from the first moment of getting to know us, proved to be an understanding connoisseur of what has been said, but also of what has not been said, that our world view can give to bear the human existence. Few knew how to accept, with deep understanding of heart and soul, the many unspoken things in all that is spoken, which lies in our world view, as Sophie Stinde did. Few knew how to penetrate with that fire of will and that warmth of feeling, to bring that which our spiritual outlook wants to bring into the world to the hearts of friends.

I can only characterize the precious bond that united us with Sophie Stinde to some extent with words that only remotely describe it by saying: One could understand her in all that words can speak to people, but one could also understand her in all that words cannot speak to people, what invisibly from human soul to human soul, what inaudibly from soul to soul. There is so much to be done when embarking on a spiritual undertaking, and one must be able to place it in human hands, and be sure that they will carry it out as one might not even be able to do oneself. There are things in such human endeavor whose fruitfulness, whose value cannot be expressed at the very moment when the work must be begun, whose fruitfulness and whose value must first develop as the work is done. And Sophie Stinde was one of those people who helped in the most powerful way when action was needed. And with that I fully express how deeply, deeply, not with blind but with seeing trust she was connected to us, we were connected to her. And, my dear friends, she was connected to us in such a way that much of what was allowed to happen within our work could never have happened without her active participation. Those mysterious connections between what is to be seen in spiritual worlds through higher senses and what lies in the artistic nature of man, that mysterious bond – we needed it in human souls at a certain time of our work. The structure that rises in the south, to be the envelope of our cause, was born out of the soul of Sophie Stinde. Not only in its intention, but also in the strength of love from which it alone could arise, in that artistic sense without which a world view cannot be poured into art. What we could only have in her, that is what Sophie Stinde brought us when she entered our midst. And I will never forget the image that has remained with me from those days when I was first allowed to speak in Munich in a more intimate way at the place of her later work and her earlier work in her and her dear friend, our dear Countess Kalckreuth, about that to which such a large part of our life force is dedicated. What touched the depths of her soul touched the depths of our soul, and what touched the depths of our soul touched the depths of hers. Kindness and love truly surrounded one of the spirits that animated her here on earth and that now carries her up to bright spiritual heights. He knew how to inspire her when she clearly pursued her life's task with her sense of truth, which guided her with certain loyalty; and in turn, to give nothing, nothing of the strict sense of duty, that was what this spirit inspired in her, which also stood by her side when she worked with love and kindness, to combine strictness, to combine rigor with love, gentleness and benevolence at all times. Thus she was our happiness in life. Thus she was one of our most precious treasures in life, as all those who were truly allowed to get close to her came to recognize her. And anyone who had once won Sophie Stinde, truly won her, could never lose her.

And now let them stand before us, all the moments when one or the other of us talked through and worked through the deepest matters of the development of humanity and also that which is closest to the human heart with her in shared longing. All these moments are eternal for those who truly experienced them, because a warmth has been poured over all these moments that can never fade away, that must remain inextinguishable in the souls. And so she worked in her place in an exemplary way for us all. She worked in such a way that from this place, truly everyone who worked with her here on earth felt connected to her. She worked in such a way that an unforgettable light radiated from this place, a light by which many will be able to enlighten themselves for a long time to come: She has so deeply, deeply embedded in the work that is ours that to which she ultimately sacrificed all her human resources. And when we look, even if she is no longer with us in the flesh, when we look at our workplace, when we feel in the midst of our work the most valuable forces that lie in this work, Sophie Stinde's ghostly voice will always speak mysteriously from our workplace, from our working hours, from our way of working, to which we have been allowed to become accustomed in such deep veneration over so many years.

Yes, we look up to You out of the pain that must arise out of the deepest bliss that flowed to us from the union of our being with Your being over many years. But we see You there in spirit. And You Yourself in the powerful way that we got to know, You Yourself in Your loving, gentle way that we also got to know, You are our consolation. You are our consolation because we take from Your heart, from the depths of Your soul, the promise that if we continue to work for the beliefs we hold to be true, You will work with us with all Your strength, so that what You have connected with us in time will remain connected with our soul for all eternity. And it will be one of the most beautiful and blissful experiences when we, always trusting, find You, our blessed spirit, at our workplace, during our working hours, in our working power. The Christ we seek was so often in Your heart - when You wanted to unite with dear friends here in the innermost part of Your being. At the same time, your deepest nature was what your thoughts sought as a worldview, as a way of life. Just as your so lovable imagination worked in your art, just as your mind and your feeling worked in your view of life, so your whole being was consciously resting in those divine powers from which the world of the senses sprouts in a spiritual way. United with that which flows and permeates the whole world as the Divine, you knew that which your soul had brought with it from the world of souls into this earthly existence. And in a deep sense you found the inner strength of desire, to find during your earthly journey the Christ, who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha for the salvation and progress of the earth, so that he can carry - uniting in their divinity his soul with our soul - our soul from a fruitful life through the gate of death, so that it may become one with the wide light and all of Spirit.

That was your nature. That was your life. And it must remain indelible in our souls, what is now bound between us and your eternal, as beautifully as the bond between us and your temporal has been bound. A world value presents itself in the world of the senses in your exemplary soul, which will be an indelible light for us in the spiritual world.

The eternal human spirit
Which your earthly shell
Lovingly revealed to us,
He hears it from the heights of the ether,
Who now connects himself
The soul's ear as a word of comfort proclaims
To friends who are filled with deep sorrow: “I will unite with your earthly work
what in the spiritual realm
gives the soul its strength.
Thus the bond that in the time being
could bind me to you
will reveal the eternal power of the seal
in light and truth.”

And so, with heavy hearts, we bid farewell to your earthly shell, which we must now surrender to the elements. And so we reunite with your spirit, which we have long sought in our earthly existence. And so we vow to always keep our thoughts active, for our souls can always find them on their way to your soul. Thus we pledge ourselves to You, You loyally connected spirit friend soul, thus we pledge ourselves to You in this hour forever!