About the Necessity of Building Bridges to Our So-Called Dead
Thoughts from Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner tells us that one of the practical tasks of anthroposophical life is to ensure that a bridge is built between the living and the dead. One way to provide the needed power to build and fortify this bridge is to come together on All Souls Day, as we have for so many years, to connect with our dead, and to read to those that we have known in life.
Reading to the Dead: We are living books for the dead. Great service can be rendered to the souls of the dead by reading to them about spiritual things, the spiritual wisdom that can be imparted to us today.
We begin by picturing the person as we knew him in life. We can read to more than one soul at a time. We needn’t read aloud, but follow the ideas with alert attention, keeping in mind that the dead are standing before me. Although it can be more difficult, it may be of real use to read to distant associates. Through the warmth of thoughts directed to them they gradually become attentive. The most ardent longing for Anthroposophy often shows itself after death in the very people who have raged against it in life.
We can read at any time, it is independent of time. It is not always essential to have a book, but you must not think abstractly and you must think each thought to the end.
In our time we are required to make a significant effort to cultivate our connections with the dead. There was a time when it was natural for the soul to be in living relationship with the dead. In ancient times we could follow the happenings of their lives. In the Middle Ages, or even more recent centuries, our prayers and feelings bore us upward to the souls of the dead with much greater power. Those who sent thoughts upwards in prayer warmed the dead by the breath of their love streaming upwards.
In the present age the dead are cut off from the living more drastically than they were a comparatively short time ago, which makes it more difficult for them to perceive what lives in our souls. This was necessary for our evolution, but now we are meant to rediscover this connection, make it alive and active, and build the bridge that will allow for real interactions between the living and the dead.
Our Living Thoughts as Nourishment for the Dead: Souls of the dead need nourishment. They come to our souls when we are sleeping seeking refreshment and nourishment from our thoughts and feelings that we have carried into sleep. Our materialistic thoughts cannot live in the spiritual world. What provides nourishment are our thoughts of the spiritual world.
As we cultivate Anthroposophy, we try to fill our hearts and souls with thoughts of the spiritual world each day, because we know that the dead who were connected with us on earth must draw their nourishment from these thoughts. This nourishment can only be drawn from those with whom there was some association during life; it cannot be drawn from those with whom there was no connection at all. That is the deeper reason for working together in community, and why it can be helpful for people to know anthroposophists, people who are not only occupied with thoughts of the material.
Obstacles to the Progress of the Dead: It can impede the progress of our person over the Threshold if we are wishing they were still here.
Hatred, or antipathy or dislike toward one who has died creates an obstacle to the good endeavors of the dead in his spiritual development. One example: a teacher whose students disliked him.
Gratitude: Feelings of gratitude form what Rudolf Steiner calls the necessary ‘spiritual air’ in which we and the dead can meet. We can feel this gratitude in two directions. We can cultivate a feeling of gratitude to the world for enabling us to live, for enriching our life continually with new impressions, and feeling that our life is absolutely a gift.
We can also cultivate a feeling of thankfulness for what someone has been to us in life. “The better we can feel what he was to us during his life, the sooner will it be possible for him to speak to us, to speak to us by means of the common air of gratitude.”
We look forward to striving together on All Souls Day to support one another as we seek to support those who are across the Threshold.
Respectfully Submitted, Valerie Hope
