3. Our Life with the Dead

Man lives, between death and a new birth in an environment which is essentially permeated through and through, not only with living forces, but with living forces full of feeling. This is his lowest sphere. As the insensible mineral kingdom surrounds us during our sense life, so a realm surrounds the dead, which is of such a nature that, when he comes in contact with anything within it, he calls forth pain or joy. Thus, with the dead it is as if we were forced to realize, during life, that as soon as we touch a stone, or the leaf of a tree, we call forth feelings. The departed one can do nothing that does not call forth feelings of joy, feelings of pain, feelings of tension, relaxation, etc., in his surroundings. When we come into contact with the departed human being—this is the case when we read to him—he himself experiences this communion as already mentioned; he becomes aware of this when we read to him; he experiences it in this particular case. In this way the departed one comes in connection with that soul who reads to him, that soul with whom he is in some way related through Karma. The dead is connected with his lowest realm (which we had to bring in connection with the animal kingdom) in such a way that everything he does calls forth joy, pain, etc; he is connected with all that calls forth a relationship with human souls (whether they are human souls living here on the earth, or souls already disembodied and living between death and a new birth) in such a way that his feeling for life is either increased or diminished through what takes place in other souls.