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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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The Dead Are With Us
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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The Dead Are With Us
The Dead Are With Us
A lecture by
Rudolf Steiner
Nüremberg, February 10, 1918
GA 182
The lecture presented here was given in Nüremberg on
February 10, 1918. In the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's
works, the volume containing the German texts is entitled,
Death as a Metamorphosis of Life, [Der Tod als
Lebenswandlung] – 1917.
(Vol. 182 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961). Translated from
the German by D. S. Osmond.
Copyright © 1963
This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:
The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. London
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Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.
February 10, 1918 Nuremberg
OUR
studies in Spiritual Science contain much that we cannot, perhaps,
put to direct application in everyday life, and we may sometimes be
inclined to feel it all rather remote from everyday life. But this is
only seemingly the case. What we receive into the sphere of our
knowledge concerning the secrets of the spiritual world is at every
hour, at every moment, of vital and profound significance for our
souls; what seems to be remote from us personally is often what the
soul inwardly needs, In order to know the physical world we must make
ourselves acquainted with it. But to know the spiritual world it is
essential that we ourselves think through and make mental pictures of
the thoughts and conceptions imparted to us by that world. These
thoughts then often work quite unconsciously within the soul. That
upon which the soul is working may seem to be quite remote, while in
reality it is very near indeed to the higher domains of the life of
soul.
And so we will study again to-day the life that takes its course
between death and a new birth — that life that seems so far
removed from the human being in the physical world. I will begin with
a simple narration of what is found by spiritual investigation. These
things can be understood if they are thought over and pondered time
and again; through their own power they make themselves comprehensible
to the soul. Anyone who does not understand them should realise that
he has not thought them through often enough. Such matters must be
investigated by means of Spiritual Science, but they can be understood
if the soul will ponder them time and again. They will then be
confirmed by the facts which meet us in life; if only life is properly
studied, they will be substantiated by the facts of life.
You will realise from many of the Lecture Courses that have been given
that consideration of the life between death and a new birth is
fraught with difficulty, because its conditions are so entirely
different from those of the life that can be pictured with the help of
the organs of the physical body here within the physical world. We
have to become acquainted with completely different conceptions.
When we enter into relationship with the things in our physical
environment we know that only a small proportion of the beings around
us in the physical world react to our actions, our manifestations of
will, in such a way that pleasure or pain is caused by
these actions of ours to beings in our environment. Reaction of-this
kind takes place in the case of the animal kingdom and the human
kingdom; but we are justified in our conviction that the mineral world
(including what is in air and water) and also, in essentials, the
world of plants are insensitive to what we call pleasure or pain when
actions are performed by us. (Spiritually considered, of course, the
matter is a little different, but that need not concern us at this
point.) In the environment of the dead all this is changed. In the
environment of the so-called dead conditions are such that everything
— including what is done by the dead themselves — arouses
either pleasure or pain in the whole environment. — The dead can
do no single thing, he cannot, if I may speak pictorially, move a
single one of his limbs without pleasure or pain being caused by what
he does. We must try to think our way into these conditions of
existence. — We must assimilate the thought that life between
death and a new birth is so constituted that everything we do awakens
an echo in the environment. During the whole period between death and
a new birth we can do nothing, we cannot even move, pictorially
speaking, without awakening pleasure or pain in our environment. The
mineral kingdom as we have it around us on the physical plane does not
exist for the dead, neither does our plant world. As you can gather
from the book
“Theosophy”
these kingdoms are present in quite a different form. They are not
present in the spiritual world in the form in which we know them here,
namely, as realms devoid of feeling. The first kingdom of those we
know on the physical plane, which has significance for the dead
because it can be compared with what the dead has in his environment,
is the animal kingdom. I do not of course mean the individual animals
that are here on the physical plane, but the whole environment is such
that its effect and influence are as if animals were there. The
reaction of the environment is such that pleasure or pain proceeds
from what is done. On the physical plane we stand upon mineral soil;
the dead stands upon a ‘soil’, lives in an environment which
may be compared with the animal nature in this sense. The dead,
therefore, starts his life two kingdoms higher. On the Earth we get to
know the animal kingdom only from the outside. The most external
activity of the life between death and a new birth consists in
acquiring a more and more intimate and exact knowledge of the animal
world. For in this life between death and a new birth we must prepare
all those forces which, working in from the Cosmos, organise our own
body. In the physical world we know nothing of these forces. Between
death and a new birth we know that our body, down to its smallest
particles, is formed out of the Cosmos. For we ourselves prepare this
physical body, bringing together in it the whole scope of animal
nature; we ourselves build it up.
In order to make the picture more exact, we must acquaint ourselves
with a concept, an idea, that is rather remote from present-day
mentality. Modern man knows quite well that when a magnetic needle
lies with one end pointing towards the North and the other towards the
South, this is not caused by the needle itself, but that the Earth as
a whole is a cosmic magnet of which one end points towards the North
and the other towards the South. It would be considered pure nonsense
to assert that the direction is brought about merely by forces
contained in the magnetic needle. In the case of a seed or germ which
develops in an animal or in a human being, all science and all schools
of thought deny the factor of cosmic influence. What would be
described as nonsense in the case of the magnetic needle is accepted
without further thought in the case of an egg forming within the hen.
But when the egg is forming within the hen the whole Cosmos is, in
fact, participating; what happens on Earth is merely the stimulus to
the play of cosmic forces. Everything that takes shape in the egg is
an imprint of cosmic forces and the hen herself is only a place, an
abode, in which the Cosmos, the whole World-System, is developing this
work. And it is the same in the case of the human being. This is a
thought with which we must become familiar.
Between death and a new birth, in company with Beings of the higher
Hierarchies, the human being is working at this whole system of forces
which permeates the Cosmos. For between death and a new birth he is
not without employment; he works perpetually. He works in the
Spiritual. The animal kingdom is the first realm with which he makes
acquaintance — and in the following way. If he makes some
mistake, he immediately becomes aware of pain, of suffering, in the
environment; if he does something right, he becomes aware of pleasure,
of joy, in the environment. He works on and on, calling forth pleasure
or pain, until, finally, the soul-nature is such that it can descend
and come together with what will live on Earth as a physical body, The
being of soul could never descend if it had not itself worked at the
physical form.
It is the animal kingdom, then, with which acquaintance is first made.
The next is the human kingdom. Mineral Nature and the plant kingdom
are absent. The dead's acquaintance with the human kingdom is limited
— if we may use a familiar phrase. Between death and a new birth
— and this begins immediately or soon after death — the dead
has contact and can make links only with those human souls, whether
still-living on Earth or in yonder world, with whom he has already had
karmic connection on Earth, in the last or in an earlier incarnation.
Other souls pass him by; they do not come within his ken. He becomes
aware of the animal realm as a totality; only those human souls come
within his ken with whom he has had karmic connection here on Earth;
with these he grows more and more closely acquainted. You must not
imagine that their number is small, for individual human beings have
already passed through many Earth lives. In every Earth life a whole
host of karmic connections has been made and of these is spun the web
which then, in the spiritual world, extends over all the souls whom
the dead has known in life; only those with whom acquaintance has
never been made remain outside the circle.
This indicates a truth which should be emphasised, namely, the supreme
importance of the Earth life for the individual human being. If there
had been no Earth life we should be unable to form links with human
souls in the spiritual world. The links are made karmically on Earth
and then continue between death and a new birth. Those who are able to
see into that world perceive how the dead gradually makes more and
more links — all of which are the outcome of karmic connections
formed on Earth,
Just as concerning the first kingdom with which the dead comes into
contact — the animal kingdom — we can say that everything
the dead does, even when he simply moves, causes either pleasure or
pain in his environment, so we can say concerning everything
experienced in the human realm in yonder world that the dead is in
much more intimate connection with human beings in the domain of
soul-life. When the dead becomes acquainted with a soul, he gets to
know this soul as if he himself were within it, After death knowledge
of another soul is as intimate as knowledge here on Earth of our own
finger, head or ear — we feel ourselves within the other soul.
The connection is much more intimate than it can ever be on Earth.
There are two basic experiences in the community among human souls
between death and a new birth: we are either within the other souls,
or outside them. Even in the case of souls with whom we are already
acquainted, we are now within, and then again outside them. Meeting
with them consists in feeling at one with them, being within them. To
be outside them means that we do not notice them. If we look at some
object here on Earth, we perceive it; if we look away from it, we no
longer perceive it. In yonder world we are actually within human souls
when we are able to turn our attention to them; and we are outside
them when we are not in a position to do so.
In what I have now told you, you have as it were the fundamental form
of the soul's communion with other souls during the period between
death and a new birth. Similarly, the human being is also within or
outside the Beings of the other Hierarchies, the Angels, Archangels
and so on. The higher the kingdom, the more intensely does a man feel
bound to them after death; he feels as though they were bearing him,
sustaining him with great power. The Archangels bear him more mightily
than the Angels, the Archai again more mightily than the Archangels,
and so on.
People to-day still find difficulty in acquiring knowledge of the
spiritual world. The difficulties would more or less solve themselves
if men would take a little more trouble to grow acquainted with the
secrets of the spiritual world. There are here two methods of
approach. One way of becoming acquainted with the spiritual world
leads to complete certainty of the Eternal in one's own being. This
knowledge, that in human nature there is an eternal core of being
which passes through births and deaths — this knowledge, remote
as it is to modern humanity, is relatively easy to attain; and it will
be attained by those who have enough perseverance, along the path
described in the book
“Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”
and in other writings. It is attained by treading the path there
described. That is one form of knowledge of the spiritual world. The
other is what may be called concrete, direct intercourse with beings
of the spiritual world, and we will now speak of the intercourse that
is possible between those who are still on Earth and the so-called
dead.
Such intercourse is most certainly possible but it presents greater
difficulties than the first form of knowledge, which is easy to
attain. Actual intercourse with an individual who has died is possible
but difficult, because it demands scrupulous care on the part of the
one who seeks it. Control and discipline are necessary for this kind
of intercourse with the spiritual world, for it is connected with a
very significant law. The very same thing that we recognise in men on
Earth as lower impulses is, from the other, the spiritual side, higher
life; and it may therefore easily happen when the human being has not
attained true control of himself, that he experiences the rising of
lower impulses through direct intercourse with the dead. When we make
contact with the spiritual world in the general sense, when we acquire
knowledge about our own immortality as beings of soul and spirit,
there can be no question of the ingress of anything impure. But when
it is a matter of contact with individuals who have died, the relation
of the individual dead — strange as it seems — is always a
relation with the blood and nervous system. The dead enters into those
impulses which live themselves out in the system of blood and nerves,
and in this way lower impulses may be aroused. Naturally, there can
only be danger for those who have not purified their natures through
discipline and control. This must be said, for it is the reason why it
is forbidden in the Old Testament to have intercourse with the dead.
Such intercourse is not sinful when it happens in the right way. The
methods of modern spiritualism must, of course, be avoided. When the
intercourse is of a spiritual nature it is not sinful, but when it is
not accompanied by pure thoughts it can easily lead to the stimulation
of lower passions. It is not the dead who arouse these passions but
the element in which the dead live. For consider: what we here feel as
‘animal’ in quality and nature is the basic element in which
the dead live. The kingdom in which the dead live can easily be
changed when it enters into us; what is higher life in yonder world
can become lower when it is within us on Earth. It is very important
to remember this, and it must be emphasised when we are speaking of
intercourse between the living and the so-called dead, for it is an
occult fact. We shall find that precisely when we are speaking about
this intercourse the spiritual world can be described as it really is;
for such experiences reveal the complete difference of the spiritual
world from the physical world.
First of all, I will tell you something that may seem to have no
meaning for man so long as he has not developed his clairvoyant
faculties; but when we think it over, we shall realise that it
concerns us closely, leading on as it does to matters in actual life.
Those who are able to have intercourse with the dead as the result of
developed clairvoyance, realise why it is so difficult for human
beings to know anything about the dead through direct perception.
Strange and grotesque as it may seem, the whole form of intercourse to
which we are accustomed in the physical world has to be reversed when
intercourse is set up between the Earth and the dead. In the physical
world, when we speak with a human being from physical body to physical
body, we ourselves are speaking, When we speak, we know that the words
come from us; when the other man speaks to us, we know that the words
come from him. The whole relationship is reversed when we are speaking
with a dead man. The expression ‘when we are speaking’ can
truthfully be used, but the relationship is reversed. When we put a
question to the dead, or say something to him, what we say comes from
him, comes to us from him. He inspires into our soul what we ask him,
what we say to him. And when he answers us or says something to us,
this comes out of our own soul. It is a process with which a human
being in the physical world is quite unfamiliar. He feels that what he
says comes out of his own being. In order to establish intercourse
with the dead, we must adapt ourselves to hear from them what we
ourselves say, and to receive from our own soul what they answer.
Thus abstractly described, the nature of the process is easy to grasp;
but really to become accustomed to the total reversal of the familiar
form of intercourse is exceedingly difficult. The dead are always
there, always among us and around us, and the fact that they are not
perceived is largely due to lack of understanding of this reversed
form of intercourse. On the physical plane we think that when anything
comes out of our own soul, it comes from us. And we are far
from being able to pay intimate enough attention to whether it is not,
after all, being inspired into us from the spiritual environment. We
prefer to connect it with experiences familiar on the physical plane,
where, if something comes to us from the environment, we ascribe it at
once to the other person. This is the greatest error when it is a
matter of intercourse with the dead.
I have here been telling you of one of the fundamental characteristics
of intercourse between the so-called living and the so-called dead. If
this example helps you to realise one thing only, namely, that
conditions are completely reversed in the spiritual world, that there
one has as it were to turn right round, then you will have taken hold
of a significant concept that is constantly needed by those who wish
to enter the spiritual world. The concept is extremely difficult to
apply in the actual, individual case. For instance, in order to
understand even the physical world, which is permeated through and
through with the spiritual, it is essential to grasp this idea of
complete reversal. And because modern science fails to grasp it and it
is altogether unknown to popular consciousness, therefore there is
today no spiritual understanding of the physical world. One
experiences this even with people who try very hard indeed to
comprehend the world, and one is often obliged simply to accept the
situation and leave it so. Some years ago I spoke to a large number of
our friends at a General Meeting in Berlin about the physical organism
of man, with special reference to certain of Goethe's ideas. I tried
to explain how the head, in its physical form, can only be understood
aright when it is conceived as a complete transformation of the other
part of the organism. No one was able to understand at all that a bone
in the arm would have to be turned inside out like a glove, in order
that a head-bone might be produced from it. It is a difficult concept
but one cannot really understand anatomy without such pictures. I
mention this in parenthesis only. What I have said to-day about
intercourse with the dead is easier to understand. The happenings I
have described to you are going on all the time. All of you sitting
here now are in constant intercourse with the dead, only ordinary
consciousness knows nothing of it because it proceeds in the
sub-consciousness. Clairvoyant consciousness does not charm anything
new into being; it merely brings up into consciousness what is present
all the time in the spiritual world. All of you are in constant
intercourse with the dead.
And now we will consider how intercourse with the dead takes place in
individual cases. When someone has died and we are left behind, we may
ask: How do I approach the dead so that he experiences me in himself?
How does the dead come near me again so that I can live in him? These
questions may well be asked but they cannot be answered if we have
recourse to concepts familiar to us on the physical plane. On the
physical plane ordinary consciousness functions only from the time of
waking until the time of falling asleep; but the other part of
consciousness which remains dim in ordinary life between falling
asleep and awaking is just as important. In the real sense, the human
being is not unconscious when he is asleep; his consciousness is
merely so dim that he experiences nothing of it. It is a dim
consciousness. But the whole man — in waking and sleeping life
— must be held in mind when we are studying the connections of
the human being with the spiritual world. Think of your own biography.
You consider the course of your life always with interruptions; you
describe only what has happened in your waking life. Life is thus
broken: waking-sleeping; waking-sleeping. But you are also there while
you sleep; and in studying the whole human being, waking life and
sleeping life must be taken into consideration. A third thing must
also be considered in connection with man's intercourse with the
spiritual world. For besides waking life and sleeping life there is a
third state, even more important for intercourse with the spiritual
world than waking and sleeping life as such. I mean the actual act of
waking and the actual act of going to sleep, which last only a moment,
for we immediately pass on into other conditions. If we develop
delicate, sensitive feelings for these moments of waking and going to
sleep, we shall find they shed great light on the spiritual world. In
remote country places — such customs are gradually disappearing,
but in the time when we who are older were still young — people
were wont to say: When you wake up it is not good immediately to go to
the window through which light is pouring; you should remain a little
while in the dark. Country folk used to have some knowledge about
intercourse with the spiritual world, and they preferred in this
moment of waking not immediately to come into the bright daylight but
to remain inwardly collected in order to preserve something of what
sweeps with such power through the human soul at the moment of waking.
The sudden brightness of daylight is disturbing. In the cities, of
course, this is hardly to be avoided; there we are disturbed not only
by the daylight but also even before waking by the noise of the
streets, the clanging of tramcar bells and so forth. The whole of
civilised life seems to conspire to hinder man's intercourse with the
spiritual world. This is not said in order to decry material
civilisation, but the fact must be borne in mind. Again at the moment
of falling asleep the spiritual world approaches us with power; but we
immediately fall asleep, losing consciousness of what has passed
through the soul. Exceptions can, however, occur.
These moments of waking and of falling asleep are of the utmost
significance for intercourse, for example, with the so-called dead
— and with other spiritual Beings of the higher world. In order
however to understand what I have to say on this matter you must
familiarise yourselves with an idea which it is not easy to apply on
the physical plane and which is therefore practically unknown. The
idea is this. In the spiritual sense, what is ‘past’ has not
really passed away but is still there. In physical life men have this
conception in regard to Space only. If you stand in front of a tree,
then go away and look back at it later on, the tree has not
disappeared; it is still there. In the spiritual world it is so in
regard to Time. If you experience something at one moment, it has
passed away the next so far as physical consciousness is concerned;
spiritually conceived, it has not passed away. You can look back at it
just as you looked back at the tree. Richard Wagner showed that he had
knowledge of this, in the remarkable words: “ Time here becomes
Space ”. It is an occult fact that in the spiritual world there
are distances which do not come to expression on the physical plane.
That an event is past means simply that it is farther away from us. I
want you to bear this in mind. For man on Earth in the physical body,
the moment of falling asleep is ‘past’ when the moment of
waking arrives. In the spiritual world, however, the moment of falling
asleep has not gone; we are only, at the moment of waking, a little
farther distant from it. We confront our dead at the moment of falling
asleep, and again at the moment of waking. (As I have said, this
happens continually, only it usually remains in the
sub-consciousness.) So far as physical consciousness is concerned,
these are two quite different moments; for spiritual consciousness the
one is only a little farther distant than the other. I want you to
remember this in connection with what I am now going to say; otherwise
you may find it difficult to understand.
As I told you, the moments of waking and falling asleep are of
particular importance for intercourse with the dead. In our whole life
there are no single moments of falling asleep or of waking when we do
not come into relation with the dead.
The moment of falling asleep is especially favourable for us to turn
to the dead. Suppose we want to ask the dead something. We can carry
it in our soul, holding it until the moment of falling asleep; for
that is the time to bring our questions to the dead, Other
opportunities exist, but this moment is the most favourable. When, for
instance, we read to the dead we certainly draw near to them. But for
direct intercourse it is best of all if we address our questions to
the dead at the moment of falling asleep.
On the other hand, the moment of waking is the most favourable for
what the dead have to communicate to us. And again there is no one
— did people but know it — who does not bring with him at
the moment of waking countless tidings from the dead. In the
unconscious region of the soul we are speaking continually with the
dead. At the moment of falling asleep we put our questions to them, we
say to them what, in the depths of the soul, we have to say. At the
moment of waking the dead speak with us, give us the answers. But we
must grasp the connection that these are only two different points and
that, in the higher sense, these things that happen after each other
are really simultaneous, just as on the physical plane two places are
simultaneous.
Now, for intercourse with the dead, some things in life are more
favourable, others less so. And we may ask: What can really help our
intercourse with the dead? The manner of our intercourse with the dead
cannot be the same as the manner of our speech with the living; the
dead neither hear nor take in this kind of speech. There is no
question of being able to chatter with the dead as we chatter with one
another at five o'clock teas and in cafes. What makes it possible to
put questions to the dead or to communicate something to the dead, is
that we unite the life of feeling with our thoughts and ideas.
Suppose a man has passed through the Gate of Death and you want your
subconsciousness to communicate something to him in the evening. For
it need not be communicated consciously. You can prepare it at some
time during the day; then if you go to bed at ten o'clock at night
having prepared it, say, at noon, it passes over to the dead when you
fall asleep. The question must, however, be put in a particular way;
it must not merely be a thought or an idea, it must be imbued with
feeling and with will. Your relationship with the dead must be one of
the heart, of inner interest. You must remind yourself of your love
for the dead when he was alive, and address yourself to him not
abstractly, but with real warmth of heart. This can so take root in
the soul that in the evening at the moment of going to sleep, without
your knowing it, it becomes a question to the dead. Or you may try to
realise vividly what was the nature of your particular interest in the
dead. It is very good to do the following. Think about your life with
the one who is now dead; visualise actual moments when you were
together with him, and then ask yourself: What was it that
particularly interested me about him, that attracted me? When was it
that I was so deeply impressed, — liked what he said, and found
it helpful and valuable? If you remind yourself of moments when you
were strongly connected with the dead and were deeply interested in
him, and then turn this into a desire to speak to him, to say
something to him — if you develop the feeling in purity and let
the question arise out of the interest you took in the dead, then the
question or the communication remains in your soul, and when you go to
sleep it passes over to him. Ordinary consciousness as a rule will
know little of the happening, because sleep ensues immediately; but
what has thus passed over often remains present in dreams. In the case
of most dreams — although from the point of view of actual
content they are misleading — in the case of most dreams we have
of the dead, all that happens is that we interpret them incorrectly.
We interpret them as messages from the dead, whereas they are nothing
but the echoing of the questions or communications we have ourselves
directed to the dead. We should not think that the dead is saying
something to us in our dream, but we should see in the dream something
that goes out from our own soul to the dead. The dream is the echo of
this. If we were sufficiently developed to be conscious of our
question or communication to the dead at the moment of going to
sleep, it would seem to us as though the dead himself were speaking
— hence the echo in the dream seems as if it were a message from
him. In reality it comes from us. This becomes intelligible only when
we understand the nature of clairvoyant connection with the dead. What
the dead seems to say to us is really what we are saying to him.
The moment of waking is especially favourable for the dead to approach
us. At the moment of waking, very much comes from the dead to every
human being. A great deal of what we undertake in life is really
inspired into us by the dead or by Beings of the higher Hierarchies,
although we attribute it to ourselves, as coming from our own soul.
What the dead say comes out of our own soul. The life of day draws
near, the moment of waking passes quickly by, and we are seldom
disposed to observe the intimate indications that arise out of our
soul. And when we do observe them we are vain enough to attribute them
to ourselves; Yet in all this — and in much else that comes out
of our own soul — there lives what our dead have to say to us.
What the dead say to us seems to arise out of our own soul. If men
knew what life actually is, this knowledge would give rise
to a feeling of reverence and piety towards the spiritual world in
which we and our dead continually live. We should realise that in
much of what we do, it is the dead who are working. The knowledge that
round about us, like the air we breathe, there is a spiritual world,
the knowledge that the dead are round about us and that it is only we
who are not able to perceive them — this knowledge must unfold in
Spiritual Science, not as external theory but permeating the soul as
veritable inner life. The dead speak to us in our inner being but we
interpret our own inner being incorrectly.
If we were to understand it aright, we should know ourselves to be
united in our inmost being with the souls who are the so-called dead.
Now there is a great difference according to whether a soul passes
through the Gate of Death in relatively early years or later in life.
When young children who have loved us die, it is a very different
thing from the death of people older than ourselves. Experience of the
spiritual world describes this difference in the following way. The
secret of communion with children who have died can be expressed by
saying that in the spiritual sense we do not lose them, they remain
with us. When children die in early life they continue ever present
with us — spiritually — to a very marked degree. I
should like to give it to you as a theme for meditation to be thought
through and developed, that when children die they are not lost to us;
we do not lose them, they stay with us spiritually. Of older people
who die, the reverse may be said. Those who are older do not lose us.
We do not lose little children; older people do not lose us.
Older people when they die are strongly drawn to the spiritual world,
but this also gives them the power so to work into the physical world
that it is easier for them to approach us. True, they withdraw from
the physical world much farther than do children who remain with us,
but older people are endowed with higher faculties of perception
than are children who die young. Those who are older retain us.
Knowledge of different souls in the spiritual world reveals that those
who died in old age live, through being able to enter more easily into
souls on Earth; they do not lose the souls on Earth. And we do not
lose the children, for the children remain more or less within the
sphere of earthly man. The meaning of this difference can also be
considered in another connection.
We have not always sufficiently deep or delicate perceptions in regard
to the experiences of the soul on the physical plane. When friends
die, we mourn and feel pain. When good friends in the Society have
passed away, I have often said that it is not the task of
Anthroposophy to offer people shallow consolation for their pain or
try to talk them out of their sorrow. Sorrow is justified; one should
grow strong to bear it, not let oneself be talked out of it. In regard
to the pain and the sorrow, people make no distinction as to whether
it is caused by the death of a child or of an older person.
Spiritually perceived, there is a great, great difference. When little
children have died the pain of those who have remained behind is
really a kind of compassion — no matter whether such children
were their own or other children whom they loved. Children remain
together with us and because we have been united with them they convey
their pain to our souls; we feel their pain — that they would
fain still be here! Their pain is eased when we bear it with them. The
child feels in us. It is good when a child can share his feeling with
us; his pain is thereby relieved.
On the other hand, the pain we feel at the death of older people
— whether it be our own parents or our friends — this can be
called egotistical pain. An older person who has died does not lose us
and the feeling he has is therefore different from the feeling present
in a child. One who died in later life retains us, does not lose us.
We here in life feel that we have lost him — the pain is
therefore only our concern. It is egotistical pain. We do not
share his feeling as we do in the case of children, we feel the pain
for ourselves.
It is really so that a clear distinction can be drawn between these
two forms of pain: egotistical pain in regard to the old, a pain
fraught with compassion in regard to little children. The child
lives on in us and we actually feel what) the child feels. In reality,
our own soul mourns only for those who died in the later years of
their life.
Just such a matter as this can show us the great significance of
knowledge of the spiritual world. For you see, Divine Service for the
Dead can be adjusted in accordance with these truths. In the case of a
child who has died, it will not be altogether appropriate to emphasise
the specifically individual aspect. Because the child, as we saw,
lives on in us and remains with us, it is good that the service of
remembrance should take a more universal form, giving the child, who
is still living with us, something that is wide and universal.
Therefore, in the case of a child, ceremonial in the service for the
Dead is preferable to a specific funeral oration. The Catholic ritual
is better here in one respect, the Protestant in the other. The
Catholic service includes no funeral oration but consists in ceremony,
in rite. It is general, universal; and it is alike for all. And what
can be alike for all is especially good for children. In the case of
one who has died in later years, the individual aspect is more
important. The best funeral service here will be one in which the life
of the individual is remembered. The Protestant service, with the
oration referring to the life of the one who has died, will have great
significance for the soul; the Catholic ritual will mean less in such
a case. The same distinction holds good for all our thought about the
dead. For the child it is best when we enter into a mood where we feel
bound up with him; we try to turn our thoughts to him, and these
thoughts will then draw near to him when we go to sleep. Such thoughts
may be of a more general kind — such for example as may be
directed to all those who have passed through the Gate of Death. In
the case of an older person, we must direct our thoughts of
remembrance to him as an individual, thinking about his life on Earth
and what we experienced together with him. In order to enter into the
right intercourse with an older person it is very important to
visualise his being, to make his being come to life in ourselves
— not only by remembering things he said which meant a great deal
to us but by thinking of what he was as an individual and what his
value was for the world. If we make these things inwardly living, they
will enable us to come into connection with an older person who-has
died and to have the right thoughts of remembrance for him. So you
see, for the unfolding of true piety it is important to know what
attitude should be taken to those who have died early and to those who
have died in the later years of life.
Just think what it means at the present time when so many human beings
are dying in their youth, to be able to say to oneself: They are
really always present, they are not lost to the world. I have spoken
of this from other points of view, for such matters must always be
considered from different angles. If we succeed in becoming conscious
of the spiritual world, one realisation at least will light up for us
out of the infinite sorrow with which the present days are fraught
— that because those who die young remain present with us, a
living spiritual life can arise through community with the dead. A
living spiritual life can and will arise, if only materialism does not
unfold its strength to such a degree that Ahriman is able to stretch
out his claws and gain the victory over all human powers.
Many a man may say, speaking purely on the physical plane, that
indications such as I have been giving seem to him quite remote, he
would prefer to be told something definite he can do morning and
evening to bring him into a right relation with the spiritual world.
But this is not quite correct thinking. Where the spiritual world is
concerned the first essential is that we should develop thoughts about
it. And even if it seems as though the dead were remote, while present
life is near and close at hand, the very fact that we have such
thoughts as have been described to-day, that we let our mind dwell on
things seemingly remote from external life — this very fact
uplifts and develops the soul, imparts to it spiritual force and
spiritual nourishment. What brings us into the spiritual world is not
what is seemingly near at hand, but first and foremost, what comes
from the spiritual world itself. Do not, therefore, be afraid of
thinking these thoughts through again and again, continually bringing
them to life anew within the soul. There is nothing more important for
life, even for material life, than the strong and sure realisation of
communion with the spiritual world. If modern men had not so entirely
lost their connection with the spiritual, these grave times would not
have come upon us. Only a very few men to-day have insight into this
connection; but insight will most surely come in the future. To-day
men think: When a human being has passed through the Gate of Death,
his activity ceases so far as the physical world is concerned. But it
is not so, in reality. There is a living and perpetual intercourse
between the so-called dead and the so-called living. Those who have
passed through the Gate of Death have not ceased to be present, it is
just that our eyes have ceased to see them. They are there,
nevertheless. Our thoughts, our feelings, our impulses of will are
connected with the dead. The Gospel words hold good for the dead as
well: “ The Kingdom of the Spirit cometh not with observation
(that is to say, external observation); neither shall they say, Lo
here, lo there, for behold, the Kingdom of the Spirit is within
you.” For we should not seek for the dead through externalities
but should become conscious that they are always present. All
historical life, all social life, all ethical life, proceed by virtue
of co-operation of the so-called living with the so-called dead. The
whole being of man can be infinitely strengthened when his
consciousness is filled not only with the realisation of his firm
stand here in the physical world but with the inner realisation that
comes to him when he can say of the dead whom he has loved: The dead
are with us, they are in our midst. This too is part of a true
knowledge and understanding of the spiritual world, which has, as it
were, to be pieced together from many different fragments. We can only
say that we know the spiritual world when the way in which we
think and speak about it comes from the spiritual world itself.
The dead are in our midst — this sentence is in itself an
affirmation of the spiritual world; and only the spiritual world can
awaken within us the consciousness that the dead are, in very truth,
with us.
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Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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