The Path of the Soul After Death: The Community of the Living and the Dead as Witnessed by Rudolf Steiner in His Eulogies and Funeral Addresses

The Path of the Soul After Death: The Community of the Living and the Dead as Witnessed by Rudolf Steiner in His Eulogies and Funeral Addresses"We are separated from the spiritual worlds only by states of consciousness, not by spatial circumstances. States of consciousness are what separate us." Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner saw relationships with the dead as the "religious attitude of the future" in the highest sense. Becoming comfortable with thinking and speaking of the dead as concretely as we speak of the living will profoundly affect human activity. To Steiner, the "enlivening" and

"We are separated from the spiritual worlds only by states of consciousness, not by spatial circumstances. States of consciousness are what separate us." --Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner saw relationships with the dead as the "religious attitude of the future" in the highest sense. Becoming comfortable with thinking and speaking of the dead as concretely as we speak of the living will profoundly affect human activity. To Steiner, the "enlivening" and even the "sanctification" of earthly existence are not merely connected directly with our relationship to death and to the deceased; in fact, that relationship deepens these qualities and makes them possible. Steiner spoke frequently about death and the human soul's continued existence, as well as about the importance of establishing a new kind of community that unites spiritually active human souls that endure beyond death.

The Path of the Soul after Death shows how Rudolf Steiner commemorated the dead, the words he chose to use, and his descriptions--sometimes in great detail--of the inner processes involved. What becomes clear is the extent to which his connections to the deceased shaped his addresses and related to their new stage of existence. Inasmuch as his words were in harmony with human soul development after death, they not only recapitulated a biography but also assisted the deceased individual along the path after death.

Peter Selg has provided an important addition to the body of anthroposophic literature on our relationship on Earth to those who have died. He does a great service in gathering and amplifying much of what Steiner had to say on the subject.

C O N T E N T S

Preface

I: "Our Community"
1. Rudolf Steiner's Eulogies
2. Funeral Addresses
3. Deceased Coworkers and the Goetheanum Building

II: "In Christo morimur"
The Path of the Soul after Death

This book is a translation from German of Rudolf Steiners Toten-Gedenken: Die Verstorbenen, der Dornacher Bau und die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft (Verlag Ita Wegman Institut, 2009).