Lecture I

When the Christian of the Middle Ages, or indeed the Christian of but a few centuries ago, turned his thoughts when at prayer to the dead who were near and dear to him, his feelings and sentiments were then more able than are such thoughts today to press up to the souls of the dead. It was much easier then for the souls of the dead to feel permeated with the warm breath of the love of those who thought of them and looked up to them in their prayers than it is today, if we only follow the external culture of the age. At the present time the dead are much more shut off from the living than they were a short time ago. It is, in a sense, much more difficult for them to perceive what lives in the souls of those they left behind. This lies in the evolution of mankind, but in this evolution of ours must also lie the recovery of this connection, this living intercourse between the living and the dead. In former times it was still natural to the human soul to be in touch with the dead, although no longer with full consciousness, for men had ceased to be clairvoyant for a very long time. In still earlier ages they could look up at their dead with clairvoyant vision and follow their subsequent life, and just as it was then natural to have living intercourse with the dead, so the soul today, if it acquires thoughts and ideas about the higher spiritual worlds, will acquire the power of establishing intercourse, living intercourse, with the dead. And among the practical tasks of Anthroposophy will be that of gradually building the bridge between the living and the dead by means of Spiritual Science.