The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Death as a Transformation of Life

[ 1 ] In the reflections we engage in within the realm of our spiritual science, there are many things that we may not be able to apply directly to everyday life—things we might even say are far removed from everyday life. But this is only apparent. What we take into our knowledge about the mysteries of the spiritual world always has—at every hour, in every moment—a powerful and profound significance for our soul. And what seems to lie further away from us personally is sometimes precisely what our soul needs in its innermost being. In the case of the physical-sensory world, what matters is that we familiarize ourselves with it in order to understand its content. In the spiritual world, what essentially matters is that we think through for ourselves and visualize for ourselves the thoughts and ideas it offers us; then these thoughts sometimes work within our soul quite unconsciously. And what the soul is then working on may seem quite distant to us; in reality, it may be quite close to the higher aspects of our soul.

[ 2 ] And so today we will turn our attention to a reflection that we have already undertaken on several occasions from certain perspectives, but which we will now approach again from a different angle. We will focus on what seems so distant to us—and indeed to human beings in general—in physical life: the life that flows between death and a new birth. And today, in particular, I would like to simply and plainly describe a few things that we, having been well prepared in various ways, can understand correctly, just as they emerge from spiritual research. One can grasp and understand these things by thinking them through again and again, anew; through their own power, they make themselves understandable in the soul. And anyone who does not understand them should, in fact, first be convinced that they have not yet thought them through often enough in their soul. They must be explored through spiritual science; they are understood when one goes over them again and again in one’s soul. They will then be confirmed, in particular, by the facts we encounter in life—if we only observe this life closely—and they will be substantiated by the facts of life.

[ 3 ] First of all, I would like to say—as is evident from various cycles of our lectures and from other considerations—that there is a difficulty when we consider life between death and a new birth, a difficulty that consists in the fact that this life is very, very different from what one can imagine here within the physical world through the organs of the physical body. One must become acquainted with very, very different concepts.

[ 4 ] When we enter into a relationship here on the physical plane with the things in our surroundings, we know that only a small portion of these beings that surround us in the physical world relates to our own actions and expressions of will in such a way that we can say: Our own expressions of will cause pleasure or suffering to what is in our surroundings. — We can say this with regard to that part of our physical surroundings which we count as belonging to the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. On the other hand—and we know that this is somewhat different when we consider the matter spiritually, but that is not the point here—we are fully justified in being convinced that the entire mineral kingdom, including everything in the air and water, and essentially the plant kingdom as well, is impervious to what we call pleasure and suffering when actions originate from ourselves.

[ 5 ] In the environment in which the so-called dead person is, this is not the case. In this environment, in which the so-called dead person is, everything that belongs to this environment is such that, whatever the dead person does, it arouses either pleasure or suffering in the environment. The dead person cannot do anything at all; to put it figuratively, he cannot even move a limb without arousing pleasure or suffering in this environment through what he does.

[ 6 ] You just have to really put yourself in that situation. One must take to heart the idea that life between death and a new birth is such that everything in our surroundings evokes an echo—everything we do; that throughout the entire period between death and a new birth, we are constantly faced with the fact that we cannot do anything—that, as I said, figuratively speaking, we cannot even move without evoking pleasure or suffering in our surroundings. For what we have here on the physical plane as the mineral kingdom in our surroundings does not exist for the dead. Likewise, our ordinary plant kingdom does not exist. These kingdoms, as you can see from my Theosophy, exist there in a completely different form. Just as they are here—in a sense, as kingdoms devoid of feeling—they do not exist in the spiritual world. The first of the kingdoms present here on the physical plane that has a certain significance for the dead—in that it can be compared to what the dead have in their surroundings—is the animal kingdom. Not, of course, the individual animals that are here on the physical plane, but the entire environment is such that it acts in the same way as animals do. The entire environment reacts in such a way that pleasure or suffering arises from what one does. Now, we here on the physical plane stand on mineral ground; the deceased stands on a ground, lives in an environment, that we can call animal in this sense. Thus, from the very beginning, the deceased lives two realms higher. The entire life between death and a new birth consists, in terms of its most fundamental activity, in getting to know [the animal kingdom]; not in the way we come to know the animal kingdom here—after all, we only get to know it from the outside—; the entire life between death and a new birth consists in getting to know the animal world as such more and more closely. For in this life between death and a new birth, one must prepare all those forces that flow in from the cosmos and organize our own body, of which we know nothing here in the physical world. How our body is formed down to its smallest parts from the cosmos—this is known between death and a new birth. For, in a sense, one prepares this physical body as the sum of all that is animal. One builds it up oneself.

[ 7 ] To understand this concept more clearly, however, one must become familiar with a concept—an idea—that is quite foreign to humanity today. Although people today are convinced that when a magnetic needle points in the north-south direction—that is, with one end pointing north and the other south— this does not originate from the magnetic needle itself, but rather that the Earth as a whole is a cosmic magnet, with one pole pointing south and the other north; and one would consider it sheer folly if anyone were to claim that this orientation is produced solely by forces inherent in the magnetic needle itself. Yet when it comes to what develops as an embryo in an animal or human being, all of science and all thinking today reject the influence of the cosmos. What would be called folly in the case of the magnetic needle is then accepted when, say, an egg forms inside a hen. But when an egg forms inside a hen, the entire cosmos is in fact involved; here on Earth, only the impulses for this take place. Everything that forms within the egg is an imprint of the cosmic forces, and the hen itself—as is also the case with human beings—is merely a site in which the cosmos, the entire world system, brings this into being. One must become acquainted with this. And within this entire system of forces that pervades the cosmos, the human being works between death and a new birth in communion with higher beings, with beings of higher hierarchies. One is always working between death and a new birth; one is not idle—one is working in the spiritual realm.

[ 8 ] The first realm one becomes acquainted with is the animal realm. And doing so correctly depends essentially on the following: If one tries to do something wrong, one immediately perceives the pain and suffering of one’s surroundings; if one does something right, one perceives the pleasure and joy of one’s surroundings. In this way, one works one’s way through by generating pleasure and joy; one works one’s way through in such a way that, in the end, one’s soul is in a state that allows it to descend and harmonize with what will live on Earth as the physical body. The soul could never descend if it had not itself worked on the physical form. The animal kingdom, then, is the one with which one first becomes acquainted. The next realm is what we have here as the human realm. The mineral and plant realms are initially left out. In the human realm, however, it is the case that the deceased is, in a certain sense—one might say, in relation to the familiar concepts we have here—limited in their human acquaintances. For between death and a new birth—this begins immediately after death or shortly thereafter—he can actually only establish relationships with those human souls, whether they are here on Earth or have already passed on, with whom he was already karmically connected in some way on Earth during his last or earlier incarnations. The other souls pass him by; he does not perceive them.

[ 9 ] He perceives the animal realm as a whole; of human souls, he perceives only those—with whom he becomes increasingly familiar—with whom he has entered into a karmic relationship here on Earth. This is not a very small number of people; do not be misled, for many earthly lives have already passed for each individual. In every earthly life, one has established a great many karmic relationships; from these, the web is woven that then spreads out over our circle of acquaintances on the other side. The only people who remain outside this circle are those with whom one has never made acquaintance. From this you can see what is important to grasp: that, in the entire universe, earthly life holds the most profound significance for human beings. If earthly life were not lived through, we would not be able to form relationships with human souls even in the spiritual world. These relationships are established here on Earth through karma and then continue between death and a new birth. If one is able to look into this world, one can see how, little by little, the so-called dead person establishes more and more connections—all of which arise from the karmic ties they formed here on Earth.

[ 10 ] If one can say that the first realm with which the so-called dead come into contact—the animal realm— it is the case that everything he does—even the slightest movement—is transformed into pleasure or suffering in his surroundings, then one can say, with regard to everything experienced in the human realm, that the deceased is connected even more intimately with human beings in the soul realm. He is right there within it. A soul with whom the deceased becomes acquainted, the deceased comes to know just as if he were inside that soul himself. After death, one becomes acquainted with a soul just as one does here with one’s own finger, or with one’s head, or with one’s ear: one feels oneself inside it. It is a much more intimate connection than can exist here on earth. And these are the two fundamental experiences of being together with human souls between death and a new birth: that one is either inside the souls or outside them. Even with those one knows, one is alternately inside or outside them. Encountering these souls always consists in feeling at one with them, in being inside them. Being outside means that one does not pay attention to them. Just as when one looks at something here: one perceives it; when one looks away, one no longer perceives it. In relation to human souls, one is “inside” when one is able to direct one’s attention to them; one is “outside” when one cannot do so.

[ 11 ] In what I have just explained to you, you have, I would say, the basic structure for the soul’s coexistence with other souls during the time between death and a new birth. In a similar way, whether inwardly or outwardly, the human being is related to the beings of the other hierarchies—Angels, Archangels, and so on—between death and a new birth. However, the higher a realm is, the more the human being feels connected to that realm after death, feels sustained by it; they feel it powerfully supporting them. Thus, the Archangels support a person more powerfully than the Angels, the Archai in turn more powerfully than the Archangels, and so on.

[ 12 ] Well, even today people still encounter certain difficulties in perceiving the spiritual world as such. These difficulties will resolve themselves relatively easily if people will only familiarize themselves a little more with the mysteries of the spiritual world. But there are, in fact, two aspects to what we might call becoming acquainted with the spiritual world. The first is a process of becoming acquainted that leads one to gain complete and sufficient certainty regarding the eternal aspect of one’s own human nature. This knowledge—that within human nature lies an essential core that is eternal, that passes through deaths and births—this knowledge, however foreign it may be to humanity today, is relatively easy to attain; and it is truly attained, if one has only enough patience, through the path described in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? and in others. It is attained in this way. That is one form of knowledge.

[ 13 ] The other is what one might call direct communication with the beings of the spiritual world—more specifically, direct communication—from which we wish to focus today on the communication one can have from here with the so-called dead. This is something that is certainly possible, but which presents greater difficulties than what was described first. The first type is something that is easy to achieve; the other—truly communicating with individual deceased persons—is certainly possible, but it is difficult to achieve because it requires mindfulness on the part of the person seeking this communication. For this particular form of communication, it is necessary for the person to be able to exercise a certain degree of self-discipline. For there is a very significant law governing communication with the spiritual world. This can be expressed as follows: What for human beings here are merely lower instincts is, when viewed from the other side—the spiritual side—a higher form of life; and it can therefore very easily happen that, if a person does not exercise proper self-discipline, direct communion with the so-called dead will arouse these lower instincts. When we simply come into contact with the spiritual world in general—when we gain insights into our own immortality and are dealing with the soul-spiritual realm—there can be no question of anything impure entering into it. But when we are dealing with specific, individual deceased persons, there is always a connection—as strange as it may sound—between the individual deceased and our blood and nervous systems. The deceased person becomes involved in the impulses that play out in the blood and nervous systems; this can stimulate base impulses. Of course, this can only be dangerous for those who have not purified their nature through discipline. This must be emphasized, for it is the reason why the Old Testament expressly forbids people from communicating with the dead—not because it would be sinful if done in the proper manner. One must, of course, disregard the methods of modern spiritualism. If it takes place on a spiritual level, it is not sinful; but if a person does not cultivate this communion with pure, soul-imbued thoughts, it very easily leads to the person, as I said, stirring up base passions. It is not the dead who stir them up, but the element in which the dead live. Consider this: what we perceive here as animalistic is the fundamental element in which the dead live. The realm in which the dead live can very easily, by penetrating into us, turn things upside down; what is actually higher there can become base within us. It is very important that we take this into account. This can certainly be said when speaking of the interaction of the so-called living with the so-called dead, because it is an occult fact.

[ 14 ] But it is precisely when we speak of this kind of communication that we can truly characterize the spiritual world as it is. For it is precisely in what is experienced there that we see how completely different the spiritual world is from the physical world here.

[ 15 ] Now I would like to begin by telling you something that may seem meaningless to a person who has not yet fully developed their clairvoyance, but which becomes clear to us when we think it through, since it relates to things that are closer to life. When someone whose clairvoyance is fully developed communicates with the dead, they must do so in such a way that this communication reveals why it is so difficult for people to know anything about the dead—I mean, to know anything through direct perception. As strange, as grotesque as it sounds: the entire nature of communication to which we are accustomed here in the physical world must be completely reversed when a connection is established between here and the dead. Here, when we speak to a person—when we speak from physical body to physical body—we speak; when we speak, we know: we are speaking, the words come from us. When they answer us, or when people speak to us, we know: the words come from them. This entire relationship is completely reversed when we communicate with a deceased person, speak—one might even say: speak, for it can be a form of speech—. The situation is reversed, so that when we ask a deceased person a question or say something to them, we then hear what we say coming from within them; that is how we perceive it. Thus, they inspire into our soul what we ask of them, what we say to them. And when they answer us or say something to us, it comes from within our own soul. This is something entirely unfamiliar to human beings here in the physical world. We are accustomed to what we say coming from within our own being. In order to communicate with the dead, one must accustom oneself to hearing from them what one says oneself, and to perceiving from one’s own soul what they reply.

[ 16 ] When you tell the story, it is, of course, easy to grasp in the abstract way it is presented; but actually getting used to having interactions structured in a way that is completely opposite to what we are accustomed to here on the physical plane—that is, nevertheless, incredibly difficult. And truly, as strange as it sounds: the fact that human beings are completely unaccustomed to making this reversal is often the reason why we do not perceive the dead, who are always there, who are always in our midst. We think: When something emanates from our soul, it comes from us. And to pay close attention to whether something in the spiritual environment inspires us—something we might say comes from within ourselves—is something that is quite foreign to us. We tend to want to link it to what we are accustomed to on the physical plane. If something comes to us from our surroundings, we attribute it to a stranger. That is the greatest error one can fall into.

[ 17 ] Well, with that I have highlighted one of the peculiarities of the interaction between the so-called living and the so-called dead. If you were to take away just one thing from this example—namely, that things are virtually reversed in the spiritual world, that one must completely turn one’s perspective around—then you have grasped an important concept that is constantly needed if one wishes to penetrate the spiritual world, a concept that is extraordinarily difficult to apply individually and in concrete terms. For example, it is necessary—also in order to understand the physical world well, which is, after all, permeated everywhere by the spiritual—to have this concept of a complete reversal. And because modern science lacks this concept entirely, and because popular consciousness lacks it entirely, this is why the physical world is not understood spiritually. One experiences this precisely when people go to great lengths to understand the world. Sometimes one must simply look beyond such things. Years ago, building on certain ideas of Goethe’s, I spoke about the outer human physical organism to a large number of our friends at a general assembly in Berlin, where I attempted to make clear how the head, in its physical form, can only be understood if one conceives of it as a complete reversal of the rest of the organism. No one understood this at all: that a bone in our arm would have to be turned inside out, like a glove, to become a skull bone. This is difficult, but one cannot know anatomy without forming these concepts. I only mentioned this in passing. It is easier to understand the other thing I told you today about communication with the dead.

[ 18 ] You see, what I have just explained is happening all the time. All of you sitting here are constantly in contact with the dead; it’s just that people in everyday life aren’t aware of it because it takes place in the subconscious. Clairvoyant consciousness does not conjure up anything new; it merely brings to consciousness what already exists in the spiritual world. All of you are constantly in contact with the dead.

[ 19 ] Now let’s take a closer look at how our usual interaction with the dead actually unfolds. You might ask, when someone has passed away and you are left behind: How can I draw close to the deceased so that they can experience me within themselves? — That is precisely what I discussed earlier. How does the deceased come close to me again so that I can live within them? You may raise this question. One cannot answer this question correctly by considering only the concepts we are accustomed to here on the physical plane. Here on the physical plane, we develop our ordinary consciousness only from waking up until falling asleep. But for the whole human being, the other part of consciousness—which remains dulled and dormant in ordinary life between falling asleep and waking up—is just as important as the part active between waking up and falling asleep. A person is not actually unconscious in the true sense when sleeping; rather, consciousness is merely so dulled that one usually perceives nothing of it. It is dulled, but one must consider the whole person—both the waking and the sleeping self—when examining the human being’s relationship to the spiritual world.

[ 20 ] Think about your own life story. After all, you always view your life as a series of interruptions. You describe only what happens from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep; then life is interrupted: waking—sleeping; waking—sleeping. But while you sleep, you are also present, and when considering the whole person, one must take into account both the waking state and the sleeping state. And when considering a person’s interaction with the spiritual world, one must truly take a third state into account as well. For besides waking and sleeping, there is a third state that is more important for interaction with the spiritual world than mere waking and sleeping—namely, waking up and falling asleep. This waking up and falling asleep always lasts only a moment, and immediately one enters a different state. But when a person develops sensitivity to these moments of waking up and falling asleep, it is precisely these moments that provide the greatest insights into the spiritual world.

[ 21 ] When you wake up, it’s like this: You know, out in the countryside these things are gradually disappearing there as well—but when we older folks were young, people in the countryside used to say: When you wake up, you shouldn’t look right away at the lit window, but spend a little more time in the dark. — People in the countryside knew about communication with the spiritual world. They still knew about it, and they didn’t want that moment of waking up to be such that they were immediately plunged into full daylight; rather, they wanted to remain composed in order to retain something of what passes so powerfully through the human soul at the moment of waking. It disturbs us that we are immediately thrust into the full flow of daily life. In the city, it’s hardly possible at all; there, we’re disturbed not only by the full swing of daily life when we wake up, but also by the noise of the street, the ringing of the streetcar bells, and so on. The whole of cultural life seems designed to make communication with the spiritual world as unappealing as possible to human beings. This is not meant as a criticism of external, material cultural life, but one must keep this fact in mind.

[ 22 ] When we fall asleep, the spiritual world approaches us in a tremendous way at the very moment we drift off, but we fall asleep immediately and lose awareness of what has passed through our soul. In certain cases, however, exceptions can occur. It is precisely these moments of waking and falling asleep that are the most significant for communication with the so-called dead, as well as with spiritual beings of the higher world in general. — To understand what I have to say in this regard, it is, however, necessary for you to grasp a concept that cannot really be applied here on the physical plane and therefore does not actually exist here. It is the concept that what has passed in terms of time has not actually passed in the spiritual realm, but is still there. This is a concept that we have in physical life only in relation to space. If you stand in front of a tree and then walk away, and later look back, it does not disappear; it is still there. So it is with time in the spiritual world. When you experience something now, it is gone from physical consciousness; from a spiritual perspective, it is not gone. You can look back on it just as you would on the tree. It is very remarkable that Richard Wagner—as his words show: “Here, time becomes space”—was aware of this fact. It is a mystery that, in the spiritual realm, there are distances that are not expressed here on the physical plane. The fact that an event lies in the past simply means: It is farther away from us. I ask you to bear this in mind especially in the case we are now considering. For the earthly being in a physical body, the moment of falling asleep is over the moment they wake up; when we are in the spiritual world, upon waking we are merely a little farther away from the moment of falling asleep. Now, this is something we must bear in mind. We are facing a dead person—as I said, we do this constantly, though it usually remains in the subconscious—when we fall asleep; when we wake up, we are facing a dead person. For physical consciousness, these are two different moments. For spiritual consciousness, however, only one of them is slightly further away from the other than the one immediately adjacent to it. I ask you to bear this in mind as I discuss what follows, otherwise you may not be able to grasp it so readily.

[ 23 ] Waking up and falling asleep, I said, are particularly important for communicating with the dead. There are no moments in human life when we fall asleep or wake up without entering into a relationship with the dead. Now, the moment of falling asleep is particularly favorable for communicating with the dead, allowing us to turn to them. If we want to ask the dead something, and we can cherish the question in our soul and hold onto it until the moment we fall asleep—so that we keep our questions, our address, or what we wish to communicate until that moment—then that is the most favorable moment; that is when we can best bring our questions to the dead; that is when it is easiest. It is possible at other times as well, but here it is easiest. So when we read aloud to the dead, we are already reaching out to them, but I mean this: Direct communication is most favorable with regard to what we address to the dead when we say what we have to say at the moment of falling asleep. On the other hand, for what the dead have to communicate to us, the moment of waking up is the most favorable. And again, it is true that there is no one who, if they were aware of it, would not bring back numerous messages from the dead at the moment of waking. We are actually in constant conversation with the dead in the unconscious depths of our soul. As we fall asleep, we ask questions of the dead. We tell them what we have to say to them in the depths of our soul. Upon waking, the dead speak to us. That is when they give us the answers. We simply need to hold the understanding that these are merely two different points in time, and that in a higher sense, what occurs sequentially is actually simultaneous—just as two places on the physical plane exist simultaneously. Now, for communication with the dead, one is more favorable, the other less so.

[ 24 ] One might well ask: What makes our communication with the dead possible? Well, my dear friends, one cannot truly communicate with the dead for the same reasons that one usually speaks with the living. They cannot hear it; they do not perceive it. So, if one were to try to chat with the dead in the same spirit as one talks with one another at five o’clock teas or coffee parties, one would not be able to do so. What makes it possible for us to ask questions of the dead, to communicate something to them, is the connection between our emotional life and our thoughts. Suppose someone has passed through the gate of death. You want your subconscious to convey something to the deceased that evening. You do not need to do this consciously. You can prepare for it throughout the day. If you prepare it around noon and go to sleep at ten o’clock that evening, it will reach the deceased as you fall asleep. But the question must be posed in a specific way; you must direct the questions to the deceased not merely through thought or imagination, but with feeling and will. You must direct them in such a way that you develop a heartfelt, spiritual connection with the deceased. You must recall the times when you turned to the deceased here with particular love, and address the deceased in such a loving spirit. So you must turn to the deceased not abstractly, but with compassion and warmth. Then this can continue in your soul so that, in the evening as you drift off to sleep—without your even realizing it—it becomes a question directed at the deceased. Or you can try to stir up within your soul that special interest you had in the deceased. Or, the following is particularly helpful: Reflect on how you lived here with the deceased. Recall specific moments when you lived together with them, and then ask yourself: What particularly interested me about the deceased? What captivated me? When did I truly feel moved, when did I say at the time: “I’m glad they said that,” “they inspired me,” “it was worthwhile to me”; I took a deep interest in what he said.” — When you recall such moments when you felt a strong connection with the deceased, when you took a particular interest in him, and when you approach this as if you wanted to speak with the deceased, as if you wanted to say something to him—when you develop that feeling purely and, from the interest you took, formulate this question—then this question remains in your soul, and in the evening, as you fall asleep, the question or the message passes over to the deceased. As a rule, ordinary consciousness is generally unaware of much of this, because you fall asleep afterward, but very often what has passed over remains present in your dreams. And by far the majority of dreams—even if their content isn’t accurate—the dreams we have about the dead, we simply misinterpret them. We interpret them as messages from the dead, but they are nothing more than the lingering echoes of the questions or messages we have directed toward the dead. We should not believe that the dead are telling us something when we dream; rather, we should see in our dreams something that emanates from our own soul and thus goes out toward the dead. The dream is the echo of that. If we were developed enough to perceive our question or message to the dead at the moment of falling asleep, it would seem to us as if the dead person were speaking. That is why the echo in the dream also appears to us as if it were a message from them; but it comes from within us. One can only understand this if one understands the clairvoyant relationship to the deceased. Precisely when the deceased seems to be speaking to us, it is actually what we are saying to them; one cannot know this unless one learns to make the comparison.

[ 25 ] So, at the moment of waking, the deceased can reach us particularly easily. A great deal comes to each person from the dead at the moment of waking. Isn’t it true that much of what we undertake in life is actually inspired by the dead or by beings of the higher hierarchies; we simply attribute it to ourselves as coming from our own soul. What the dead say comes from our soul. Daily life takes over, the moment of waking passes, and we are rarely inclined to observe the intimate things that rise up from our soul. And when we do observe them, we are vain enough to attribute everything that comes from our soul to ourselves. But in all of this—far more than what comes from our soul—lives what our departed dead have to say. For what the dead say to us seems to rise up from our own soul. If people knew at all what life really is, then from this knowledge a very special, reverent feeling would develop toward the spiritual world in which we constantly dwell and in which our dead reside. And we would know, in much of what we do, that it is actually the dead who are at work within us. In spiritual science, this must not develop as external, theoretical knowledge, but as something that will increasingly permeate the soul as an inner life. This knowledge must develop—the knowledge that all around us, like the air we breathe, there is a spiritual world, and that the dead are around us, though we are simply not capable of perceiving them. These dead speak to our inner being, but we misinterpret our inner being. If we were to interpret it correctly, we would know—precisely through the perception of our inner being—that we are connected to the souls who are the so-called dead.

[ 26 ] There is a great difference among the dead, depending on whether a soul passes through the gate of death relatively early or in later years. Whether young children who loved us pass away, or whether older people pass away while we are still young, makes a great difference. If one wishes to characterize this difference based on experiences with the spiritual world, one could do so in the following way. When young children pass away, the mystery of being together with the children who have died can be expressed by saying: Spiritually speaking, we do not actually lose these children. They remain here spiritually. Children who die early in life are, in fact, always spiritually present to a very high degree. — We will go into this matter in more detail shortly. I would like to present this as a meditation for your souls—something you can reflect on further—that when children pass away, they are not lost to us; we do not lose them; they always remain with us spiritually. And in the case of older people who pass away, the opposite can be said. There one can say: They do not lose us. We do not lose children, and older people do not lose us. When older people pass away, they exert a powerful attraction toward the spiritual world, but this also gives them the power to influence the physical world in such a way that they can reach us more easily. Although they distance themselves much further from the physical world than children, who remain with us, they are endowed with higher powers of perception than those who die at a younger age. They remain with us. When one becomes acquainted with various souls in the spiritual world, whether they died young or old: those who died at an older age live on because they have the power to penetrate earthly souls more easily; they do not lose contact with earthly souls; and as for the children, we do not lose them—they remain, to a greater or lesser extent, within the sphere of earthly human beings.

[ 27 ] This can also be characterized in another way. You see, even when it comes to what a person experiences with their soul on the ordinary physical plane, they do not actually always have very deep feelings. When people die, we feel grief; we feel pain because of it. I have often said—especially when good friends from our own circle have died—that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not have the task of offering people insincere consolation for their pain or of talking them out of it. Pain is justified; one should become strong enough to bear it, but one should not allow others to talk one out of it. Yet when it comes to pain, we do not distinguish between whether this pain stems from the passing of the young or that of older people. And yet, from a spiritual perspective, there is a very, very great difference. One might say: The person who is left behind, with regard to children who have passed away—whether they are his own or those he loved in some other way—experiences, if I may put it technically so to speak, a certain pain of compassion. — Children actually remain with us, and because we were connected to them, they remain so close to us that they transfer their pain to our souls, and we feel their pain—that they would still like to be here. This eases their pain, because we share it with them. In a sense, the child within us feels this. It is good if it can feel with us; this eases its pain. In contrast, the pain we feel when older people pass away—whether they are parents or friends—can be called a selfish pain. The elderly person who has passed away does not lose us; therefore, they do not experience the same feeling as someone who dies young. They retain us; they do not lose us. We, here in this body, feel that we have lost them; therefore, the pain concerns only us. It is a selfish pain. We do not feel their feelings as we do with children, but rather feel the pain for ourselves.

[ 28 ] One can really distinguish very clearly between these two kinds of pain: selfish pain toward older people, and compassionate pain for younger people. The child lives on within us, and we actually feel what the child feels. We are truly saddened in our very souls only by the passing of the elderly. This is not without meaning.

[ 29 ] Well, it is precisely in a case like this that one can truly see that knowledge of the spiritual world is, after all, of great importance. For you see: based on this, the cult of the dead can, in a certain sense, already take shape. When it comes to a child who has passed away, the highly individualized aspects of the rite of the dead may not be entirely appropriate; rather, since the child lives on within us and remains with us anyway, it is good to keep the memory alive in a way that is more universal—to offer the child living among us something universal. Therefore, for example, in the rite of remembrance for children, the ceremonial aspects of the funeral service are preferable to a specific eulogy. I would say that, depending on the circumstances, the Catholic and Protestant denominations each have their own strengths in this regard. Catholicism does not have a funeral eulogy in the strict sense, but rather a funeral ceremony, a rite. This is something universal; it is the same for everyone. That which can be the same for everyone is particularly good for children—if we can organize the commemoration in such a way that it can be the same for everyone. For those who have died at an older age, the individual aspect is more significant. For the elderly who have passed away, the best funeral ceremony will be one in which we focus directly on their life. The Protestant tradition—the specific eulogy that refers to the life of the deceased—will be of great significance for the deceased; in that case, the Catholic rite would be of lesser importance. But also in other aspects of commemorating the deceased: For a child, it is best to put oneself in a state of mind where one feels connected to the child; then one tries to direct thoughts toward the child, which will then draw the child toward those thoughts as they fall asleep. These thoughts can be kept more general—for example, things that can be directed more or less toward all the deceased. In the case of older people, it is necessary to focus on the memory of that specific person—that is, to address that specific person individually and reflect on what was close to their heart, on what you experienced together with them. In particular, it is of great importance when dealing with an older person to establish the right connection with them by bringing their essence to mind and making that essence come alive within oneself. So it is not merely a matter of remembering what they said to you or what evoked a particular feeling in you, but rather what they were as an individual, what they meant to the world: bringing that to life within oneself is what will enable one to connect with an elderly deceased person and to honor their memory appropriately. So you see: for the reverence we cultivate, it is important to know how to behave toward both younger and older deceased persons.

[ 30 ] Consider how relevant this is to the present day, when so many people die at a young age—to be able to say to oneself: They are, in a very real sense, always here; they are not lost to the world. — I have already said this to you here from other perspectives, but in spiritual matters, one must view things from various perspectives. And if one succeeds in becoming conscious of the spiritual world, then out of this infinite sadness of the present, something may well develop in a spiritual sense: namely, because the dead have remained—insofar as they are young people—a vibrant spiritual life can arise through this communion with the dead. This will come about if materialism cannot exert its power so strongly that Ahriman can extend his clutches and triumph over all human strength.

[ 31 ] What I have told you today is precisely the kind of thing that may lead some here to say to themselves on the physical plane: “Yes, that’s not for me; I’d rather have something I can do in the morning and evening to establish the right relationship with the spiritual world.” — But that is not quite the right way to think. When it comes to the spiritual world, what really matters is that one develops thoughts about it at all. And even if the dead seem distant to us and our own lives seem close at hand: allowing thoughts such as those developed today to flow through our souls, thinking through something that seems foreign to our immediate outer life—that is what elevates our souls, what gives our souls spiritual strength and spiritual nourishment. For it is not what seems close at hand that leads one into the spiritual world, but rather what first emerges from the spiritual world. Therefore, do not shy away from thinking through such thoughts consistently, from allowing these thoughts to live more often in your soul. For there is nothing more important in life—even in material life—than being able to hold deep convictions about our connection with the spiritual realm. Had people in more recent times not lost their connection with the spiritual to such a great extent, these difficult times we face today would not have come to pass. Very few people today recognize this deeper connection; in the future, however, it will be understood. Today people believe that once a person has passed through the gate of death, their activity in relation to the physical world ceases. No, it does not cease. A constant, lively exchange takes place between the so-called dead and the so-called living. And we can say: Those who have passed through the gate of death have not ceased to be there; it is only our eyes that have ceased to see them; but they are there. Our thoughts, our feelings, our impulses of will—they are in connection with them. For the words of the Gospel apply especially to the dead: “Do not seek them in outward gestures; the kingdom of the Spirit is in your midst.”

[ 32 ] Thus, one should not seek the dead through any external means, but should simply become fully aware that they are constantly present. All historical, social, and ethical life unfolds through the interaction of the so-called living with the so-called dead, and a person can experience a special strengthening of their entire being by allowing themselves to be increasingly permeated not only by the awareness that comes to them when they have a secure footing here in the physical world, but also by the awareness that comes to them when, out of a true inner sense, they are able to say to their beloved departed ones: The dead are right here among us. — For this, too, is part of true knowledge, of a true understanding of the spiritual world, which is composed of various elements. One might say: we know the spiritual world in the true sense when the way we think and speak about this spiritual world springs from the spiritual world itself.

[ 33 ] The statement: “The dead are among us”—it is itself an affirmation of the spiritual world, and only the spiritual world can awaken in us a true awareness that the dead are among us.