A lecture given at the conference of the German Society for Anthroposophic Psychotherapy in autumn 2022 in Berlin.
by Dagmar Krüskemper
The title of the conference “Everything begins with luminousness – life and death” indicates that crossing the threshold is not only the end of a state of being, but also a step into a new being and consciousness: the birth into the spiritual world.
From my experience as a reincarnation therapist, I would like to point out the obstacles and remainders that can hinder this transition to be as light as possible. In order to derive suggestions how this knowledge can be fruitful in the psychotherapeutic support at the end of life.
What obstacles can arise on the threshold?
I would like to illustrate this with exemplary sequences from regression sessions in my practice. At the beginning of my training as a reincarnation therapist, I was deeply astonished to learn that people might not be aware of their own death. It is a fact of experience in regression therapy that death is not always noticed. And that the soul, or the parts of the soul incarnated in the past life personality, can get stuck on the threshold – the further post-mortal path into the subsequent spheres of the spiritual world does not simply continue “as if by itself”.
– Not realising the own death –
Reasons for not noticing death could be a sudden, unexpected death, e.g. whilst being in shock, in an accident or a heart attack or stroke, like in the following example:
A client came with mild depression, as she put it. During the conversation, we get to the bottom of her experience of what causes her the most suffering: “I don’t feel like I belong and I feel powerless “.
We allow her subjectively felt reality of experience to become visible with bodily sensations, emotions and believes. She focuses her concentrated attention on the loneliness and heaviness in the heart and the sentence “It is hopeless “.
Full concentration on a self-chosen content is the natural bridge to a deepened,
expanded consciousness, and brings us to the level of our imaginative consciousness, the soul world.
The client reaches the original situation of her suffering, she experienced herself as a man at the end of the century before last, his mother died in childbirth and he was lovelessly raised by a neighbour, there was no supportive family, he always felt lonely and found no connection. Then finally after midlife he found a loving companion ….
T – What is the best thing about being with her for you?
C – Just being together in the house, cooking together.
T – How does that make you feel?
C – It warms my heart.
T – Feel how warm it is for you. Then go further to where something important changes for you. Where are you?
C – I must have left her, I’m at a crossroads and I don’t know which way to go … I’m confused, still searching for community, where I belong.
T – Feel how you’re standing there, what are you wearing?
C – A heavy grey coat and a grey floppy hat…so grey everything there and it’s kind of cold there.
T – Please, go back to the last time you saw your wife.
C – We’re sitting in the living room; she’s sewing and I’m sitting in the armchair reading or something.
T – How do you feel?
C – …… all of a sudden there’s this extremely bright light behind me …. I think you could call it dying.
T – What do you call it?
C – …yes, that’s dying.
T – Please have a look at your body.
C – He has slipped off the chair in a funny way.
T – Look at your wife, how is she?
C – She’s completely terrified, she’s panicking and screaming for help.
T – What’s your last feeling?
C – I’m in a daze. I miss her.
T – When you see your body like that, do you think you can still use it?
C – …. no.
T – Do you realize now that you died there?
C – Yes, now I do. It didn’t hurt at all, there was no pain. Now I can finally relax.
It was only now that the client was able to realize that she was dying, it just came so incredibly suddenly out of the blue.
The soul hadn’t realized so quickly that the body was no longer alive, it didn’t understand what happens after death and so it clings to what it alone knows: the physical body.
The unconscious dying in the past is precisely the reason that a suffering still reaches into today’s life unprocessed and causes problems that now hinder and burden. Thus, experiencing and becoming aware of dying is an essential element of a regression in order to be conscious: This is over.
Therapeutically effective here is looking at the earthly facts “Look at your body, is it still alive? Can you still use it? and make it explicit. “Do you realize now that you died there?” has a waking and liberating effect.
The client’s perception here also describes quite well the situation in which the soul, which has not realised that the body has left it, then finds itself, in which it seems to be stuck. It is another level of reality, the lower soul world with an atmosphere of grey and cold, with a confused, rather sad mood and the feeling of still having to do the same thing again and again, something is stuck. This level of consciousness is still bound to the etheric forces of the earth sphere: it goes on and on, but as if automatically, not consciously controllable, just a functioning.
The fragmentation of one’s own soul may be situational at the moment of death, or it may have already extended over a longer period of life and lowered consciousness. One may have already lost one’s vitality in life.
Another example for such a situation: The client describes herself as unable to relate and that she feels lonely and lifeless in company. When tracing back these emotions, she initially experiences various childhood experiences in which she is “like a small, powerless heap “. She then enters a past life as a little boy, whom his mother together with her little dog brings into care to a probably church-orientated asylum in order to save him.
T – Go to the moment when you’re standing in front of the gate with the mother? What’s that like for you?
C – The dog runs in there and I run after him.
T – How do you say goodbye to your mum?
C – …. cannot see her, she is gone.
…. and then he only had the dog left. A few years later, when he is alone with the dog in the woods, he sees two men who frighten him and he hides in the bushes. Powerless, he has to watch as the men, obviously annoyed by the carefree dog jumping around, simply stab him.
T – What do you feel when you see that?
C – It’s like they’re slashing me!
And she adds: The boy is like dead then; he’s left his vitality with the dog. It had left him speechless. As a teenager he has to leave the community and wanders around more like a thief, only focussed on where he can get something to eat and sleep. Full of powerlessness and sadness he starves to death at some point.
His soul has identified so much with the dog that he then spent most of his time in the body without the life force of vitality, more just functioning than being able to live consciously and attentively. And so, crossing the threshold makes no great difference for him, it just goes on and on like this, a just functioning.
In most cases in such life situations, it is not enough to explicitly say “You died there – Look at your body? Can you still use it like this?“ to become aware of dying. But it needs additional support to make the new state vivid and approachable: something like “you know, the soul lives on and can move freely“ or to draw attention to the surrounding light.
Furthermore, it still requires to let the soul become whole again, and in the session, we reintegrated her lost soul part, her aliveness.
We work in the deepened level of consciousness of the soul world beyond time and space, the imaginative soul experiences and knows at the same time and can reintegrate parts of its own substance.
To similar states of mind, in which the transition across the threshold is not conscious,
and which can be accompanied by fatigue of the life forces and disorientation of consciousness, can lead a difficult life path with repeated severe traumas, long illnesses with loss of reference to space and time, and with a lowered state of consciousness due to e.g. pain-relieving, mind-altering medication or drugs.
When the “incomplete death” has become conscious in the session, another level of experience regularly opens up:
As a past life personality, a client has now seen that she has succumbed in battle ….
T – When you are lying there, feel how your breath is now?
C – It is becoming calmer, there is now a light stream from the belly up to above my head.
T – How much of your strength do you still have?
C – Everything flows so beautifully, I am very light, it carries me like floating in the light.
T – How is your heart doing there?
C – I don’t need that. It’s like a body of light now. Somehow a body, because I am.
T – Yes, the body dies, the soul can live on.
C – I always imagined it somehow like this, I just expected more colours.
T – How do you feel now as a light body?
C – It’s a deep sense of well-being now.
Rudolf Steiner explains in many lectures how important the experience and memory of the moment of death is for the further path in the spiritual realm after death: e.g. in the lecture of 16 November 1915 in Berlin ” The spiritual life in the physical world and the life between death and new birth.”
… Death, however – and this distinguishes it from birth in its significance after death – always stands before the spiritual eye as the greatest, most significant, most vivid, most perfect event in the time between death and the new birth. For death is precisely that of which we have our I-consciousness after death. And just as it is impossible for us here in our physical life to remember our birth, it is just as necessary and natural in the whole time that we spend in the spiritual world, in the life between death and the new birth, that the moment when the spirit breaks free from the body is always before our spiritual-soul view.
It is from this death, in connection with what we have experienced here, that the strength we need to feel ourselves as “I“ flows to us. One might say: if we could not die, we could not experience us as a spiritual being, as the spiritual “I“, at all. …
In my sessions with clients, I have not only experienced an incomplete death due to an unconscious “not realising” of the threshold transition, but also a more conscious not wanting to realise that they are dying.
– Not wanting to acknowledge the own death –
As an example, a session from my training group with my teacher Marianne Carolus:
A client suffering from heart problems finds herself as an indigenous young man rowing a boat with others. They have to contend with choppy seas and he feels his straining, pounding heart. To his relief, he quickly finds himself on the other shore, around a campfire with his tribe. On closer inspection, however, things look a little different.
We enter the session at the moment when it becomes exhausting for him:
T – How is the weather? Is the water moving?
C – Yes, it’s moving, it’s chaotic. We have to be quick.
T – Is there something with the boat or is there something in the water that you have to be so fast?
C – I think there’s a whale in the water, at least a big fish.
T – Does that scare you?
C – Yes, I’m afraid the boat will tip over.
T – Go to where something is happening …. what do you see?
C – I see a big tail fin coming out of the water.
T – What happens when this large flipper comes out of the water?
C – We’re rowing with all our might and my heart is pounding.
T – Go very slowly, go to the last moment where you feel your body? What do you feel?
C – I’m already in the water.
T – And what are you doing when you’re already in the water?
C – I’m still rowing. I’m fighting.
T – You are fighting. Can you do it? Do you have a chance?
C – …. No, I can’t make it. I’m trying to keep my head above water.
T – What happens when you try to keep your head above water and you don’t stand a chance?
C – I want to make it, with all my strength!
…. The client says this with great emphasis in her voice …
T – Did you know that the soul lives on, even without a body?
C – … No.
T – Yes, your soul manages to get out of the water. It manages to get to your campsite and be by the fire, where you so much wanted to be. But your body didn’t make it.
…. Can you image that there is also another direction where the soul can go with all its might after death. Can you feel that?
C – … Yes.
The strong young man was not yet ready to die, there was still so much will and strength and he could not accept the defeat of the healthy strong body. Only then could he realise it, when he also felt the even greater power of nature.
In a therapeutic context, it has also proven to be an effective support to be able to cross the threshold to ask souls who have already passed away and who were lovingly connected to you to accompany you.
T – Have you already lost someone you love to death?
C – Yes, my mother.
T – Can you ask the soul of your mum, who has already died, to come, is that possible?
C – She’s there, she looks happy to see me.
T – Can you go with your mum?
C – Yes, …. that’s good.
T – Then look back at your body again.
C – It’s still in the water
T – Say goodbye to your body now, what do you want to say to it?
K – You were a good body. You were big and strong, but the other was simply stronger.
T – Would you like to thank him too?
C – Yes, absolutely.
T – Can you let him go now?
C – Yes. … my heart feels much lighter, there is no longer a struggle.
In order to consciously let go of the familiar connection with the body, which carries you so reliably through life, it is sometimes nice to explicitly honor it, to thank it, or sometimes to hug or caress it again, whatever is important and right for the client to say goodbye to his body.
Sick and injured people often take their physical complaints with them into the etheric body because they have become so used to it, have identified with it or because they do not realise that it is not necessary any longer. It is beneficial to make them realise that they are healthy as soul-spiritual beings in the soul world and that only the physical body has had this injury.
In regression sessions it is sometimes also shown that it is not insignificant how and where the physical body finds its final resting place, so that the soul can detach itself.
The disembodied soul only detaches itself from its physical shell over a certain period of time. It remains in the etheric environment for a while and is usually still present at the body’s funeral. Not being buried in a befitting manner, for example being thrown into an anonymous mass grave, can be experienced as very devaluing and unacceptable for the soul.
Many wishes and desires with which the soul has identified itself can cause that the soul does not really want to “recognize and accept” the moment of death. Such as longing to starting a family, becoming a chief, achieving an ideal, to take revenge or to keep to power. Feelings are realities that still have their own energy, and if they are not resolved and released, the soul cannot merge into the soul world.
It is helpful to ask explicitly, especially in the case of people who have died young and are still on the path of incarnating into the physical body something like “What exactly did you still want to do? What else did you want to experience and learn?“ To give expression to these wishes, ideas and intentions and to allow them to become visible at least once, albeit now on a different level of reality, so that the soul can let go and dying can be accepted.
– Self-made convictions of not being allowed to die –
An even stronger obstacle to consciously perceiving the threshold are resolutions and judgements that have been made by a more or less conscious ego itself. These can often lead to the self-imposed conviction that one is not allowed to die.
A very common situation that we find in regression sessions are decisions made out of feelings of guilt:
As a client came an open, dynamic woman in her early 50s. She is struggling with decision-making difficulties including leaving an unfavourable work situation and making a clear move in her marriage. We come to an inner conviction behind it “I don’t deserve to feel good“. She puts it even more bluntly “Why don’t I want things to go well for me?“
She finds herself as a boy around 9-10 years in a small settlement in the forest. He goes into the forest with his little sister, loses himself in observing the animals and completely forgets about his sister. Suddenly he remembers her …
T – Listen, can you hear her?
C – I’m looking for her.
T – Yes, well, go on to the moment when you see her.
C – She’s down there in the stream, she’s lying there somehow in a strange position.
T – What’s it like for you to see her like that?
C – I feel numb, the ground opens up in front of me. I have to run and to hide.
T – Feel where your legs are taking you?
C – Into the ditch.
He remains there and is not found. He wants to bury himself, “then nobody will see me anymore“. He is starving to death in the end, his last thought: This is fair! The self-made conviction of his childlike soul with all its vital willpower binds him firmly to the idea that he alone is to blame for his sister’s death and keeps him firmly in the ditch. He has no right to deserve any kind of liberation. During the session, she was able to dissolve this conviction by communicating with the parents and sister on the level of consciousness of the soul world.
This is the phenomenon of the disappearance of the boundaries of space and time. Communication is like this: whoever asks another something also knows the answer while asking it. Question and answer are of the same being. Here you find yourself where you are focusing your attention at, even in the soul of another. In this way, it is also possible to experience the effects of your actions: Action and effect belong together. It is possible to experience from a point of consciousness that is superordinate: ‚the eternal I‘ radiates in from above.
In connection with “not being allowed to die“ it should also be mentioned that a soul “cannot leave” and remains bound to this world, because another soul “does not want to let go of her“, e.g. by relatives who are still holding on out of love, disappointment or habit. Unresolved feelings such as hatred or anger are also pretty sure guarantees of staying attached. On a spiritual level we are not as separate as on a physical level, feelings create and maintain spiritual-energetic connections.
– Promises, oath and vows are still binding –
Self-made decisions also include all kinds of promises. In life a promise can be a source of strength and connection, but it also binds:
A young man came to therapy. In a LSD trip he had experienced himself as a soldier in the trenches and could not get rid of this experience and the associated images. Through the deepening of his inner images and the feelings and physical sensations associated with them, he came to re-experience himself as a soldier probably in World War I. During an attack he suffers a bullet through his cheekbone from the left. It burns terribly. He holds on to the moment, he can’t get the thought that a shot to the head is fatal. He keeps repeating “as long as I feel the burning, I’m still alive“. We then found out that the call-up felt like an adventure and a step into the world for him. But his mother’s reaction to it had broken his heart and he had promised her he would come back alive. So, he had to cling to the last situation he is still feeling something, meaning that he is still alive then.
Helpful here, after reliving the actual situation and now being able to understand it comprehensively from a higher point of view, is the questions: Do you still have to keep the promise? Do you want to leave it as it is? How do you want to express it now? A promise made by a more or less conscious mind can only be cancelled by a conscious mind. Making a different conscious decision yourself now has a liberating effect.
In the example, the personal promise was decisive; in a military context, oaths of honour, kingdom or flag often also play a role and must be dissolved. Previous lives in religious contexts such as monasteries and brotherhoods with vows that have been made, often with the addition forever, can also have an eternally binding effect. In sessions one does find as well marriage vows in which, phrases such as “until death do you part” were not woven into the ritual, or promises of friendship with “we will love each other forever“.
In all the examples so far dying was not fully realised and accepted, it was, so to speak, slept through. Steiner, in a lecture of 22 February 1916 put it like this: “…. In the moment when we do not look beyond the gate of death to the moment of death, it is the same for this I-consciousness after death as it is for the physical I-consciousness here in sleep. Just as one knows nothing of the physical I-consciousness in sleep, one knows nothing of oneself after death if one does not have this moment of death before one’s eyes ….”
However, this also means that parts of the soul incarnated in the past life personality cannot be transformed and integrated in the after-death passage through the soul-spiritual spheres. The unprocessed experiences must be repeated, must be experienced again. The soul leaves itself something for the next life.
What remainders burdening the surrounding can come about on the threshold?
Far more serious than leaving something for the own soul is to leave something that can be a burden for other people. Incompletely deceased souls who have not realised that they are in a new state, but got stuck in the etheric still connected to the earthly realm, usually remain focussed with all their attention on their desires and needs.
However, feelings and thoughts are real facts in this dimension; they have an effect on their surroundings. Here what vibrates in a similar way is close.
– Hindering another soul –
These lost, confused souls, can cling to the aura of incarnated people and impose their own impulses and problematic issues on them. They then continue to live on through the life forces of a living person with the illusion of still experiencing something, of still being able to do something. In regression therapy we call this an attachment.
A client came in because on the one hand she had something too much, a uterine myoma which she did not want to have operated on. On the other hand, she had the feeling that she was missing something. which made itself felt for her as an inner restlessness, like an unfulfilled longing, and she expressed it as “having to find a home”.
In order to find her own ways and explanations for dealing with the myoma, and in the hope of avoiding an operation, she had already done some constellation work, during which her grandmother (her most important carer as a child) appeared near her and since then she had always had the sentence in her head “You have to take care, says Silesia“.
In deep concentration she focussed her attention on the area in her lower abdomen. She found there a dark, frayed ball with a feeling of strain.
T – How do you feel about it, does it belong to you?
C – …. no
T – Tell me, were you able to say goodbye to your grandmother when she died?
C – No, I was 12 at the time and my mum had broken off contact with her mother, my granny.
The emotional connection that we have made with people close to us can, even without them being physically present, enable us to communicate with them.
T – Please, do invite the soul of your grandmother. How does she appear?
C – She’s really happy to see me, she missed me so much. But she’s also kind of sad.
T – Ask her what’s making her so sad.
C – She doesn’t know where she belongs.
T – Ask her if she knows that she has died, that she no longer has a body.
C – She looks astonished.
T – Can you tell her what happened when she died?
C – She becomes thoughtful somehow. Now she can see it.
T – Show her the dark, fringed ball and ask her if she knows it.
C – She nods. It’s hers.
Grandma was painfully familiar with the experience of losing her home (in Silesia in World War II) and had tried so hard to give her granddaughter a feeling of home and belonging that, in her endeavours to take care of her, she penetrated her granddaughter’s aura a little too closely with her energy and then stayed with her.
Interpersonal energy flows are creating realities and soul filled, living energy moves between living things as etheric metabolism. This can lead to energetic mixtures, which we can put in order again in deepened imaginative consciousness.
The child gives back to grandma what belongs to her – the dark ball with the feeling of strain. And it gets back from her grandma what belongs to her – a white, light-coloured ball. her childlike joy of life and her freedom.
What appears to be a symbolic action from the outside is experienced as reality, because it is an activity in the level of consciousness of the soul-spiritual world where thoughts are creating realities.
The feedback from the client, meeting her by chance after some years, was that surgery was not necessary anymore, the myoma had receded.
Especially in such close relationships as in family contexts, energetic mixtures are part of everyday life. Decisive for the effects is how much the individual soul is aware of itself and consciously aware of accepting boundaries.
Small children are at a disadvantage. They are still working on their etheric body and are still building it up from the surrounding etheric-elemental environment, and are particularly open to everything energetic. If energies attach to another soul in life, the probability increases that this soul will then attach itself completely after “an unconscious death”. The unconsciously deceased soul often means well, but still hinders and weighs down the other soul for it can no longer fully exist in its own life force.
Attachments do not happen by chance; it needs a suitable “keyhole”. According to the law of the spiritual world that similar energies have an inner proximity and attract each other the closest possible soul in a body with the same energy is sought out and if it is unconsciously open because it is not completely with itself, e.g. through shock, the wandering soul can latch on.
Attached souls can be redeemed through loving understanding, this is usually possible in a conversation at soul level. Of course, the first step is to make them aware of their death as well as the situation they are in e. g. in a foreign body causing trouble so that they can understand and leave out of their own decision.
– Hindering other souls in the family line –
In regression work we find that attached energies also can be passed on through the generations in the family stream – what cannot be processed is passed on.
An example of working with the ancestral lineage:
The client Mrs J. grew up as an illegitimate child with grandma, grandpa, uncle and father. In later age it came to her memory to have been abused by her father. She made it public in the family, it was denied by everyone and she was branded a liar accused she wanted to destroy the family. She had broken off contact and had come to terms with the abuse experience through trauma therapy. Still remained a burden to her, some self-doubt, which she expressed as “Do I have to feel guilty if I stand by my truth?“
In the session we started with a childhood situation with all family members gathered. She feels proud, is the centre of attention, is praised a lot and often. A closer look at the situation reveals that it is very stressful for her, everyone draws on her joy and vitality energetically. In an energetic exchange we ask it back from all family members, which works well. Only the exchange with the father is stuck …
T – Does the father know that he has died?
C – Now he’s turning away again, doesn’t want to admit it.
T – What exactly is hindering him?
C – He still wants the confirmation from me that he was a good father.
T – What do you like to do?
C – I can only confirm it to him for a few things. I could even forgive him now, but I want an apology from him.
….. for what the father isn’t ready.
T – Look, what exactly does the connection to your father look like?
C – A thread from my heart and there are lots of black lumps attached to it.
T – Are these yours?
C – No.
T – Do they belong to the father?
C – No, somehow not. They seem to belong to many, and they should be removed.
T – Yes, exactly. Now imagine behind the father all his ancestors. Ask all those who also know this “getting something attached“ to come forward.
C – There are many. But they all still want to attach something more.
T – No, not like that. Only those who know the feeling of suffering with it.
C – There are a few now, only women.
T – Then ask the very first one who knows this “getting something attached” to show herself.
We work in the level of consciousness of the soul world, the concept of time and space does not exist there, everything just is right now and right here.
The client notices a woman dressed in rural village clothes and in communicating with her, she learns her story. The woman had had a child by her husband’s brother, this brother-in-law had made it public to everybody. Her husband then rejected her. Still, she stayed in the village because of the children, upright, but lonely and exposed to general contempt.
T – How do you feel about the fact that she stayed?
C – She is brave and strong.
T – Ask her if she knows that she has passed on this feeling of “getting something attached“.
C – No, she is shocked, she did not want that.
T – Ask her, if you still need to carry this for her?
C – No, no.
T – What would she like to pass on into the family line instead?
C – The conviction that “living the truth confers a dignity that no social recognition can replace“.
T – Would you like to accept her new gift?
C – Yes, gladly.
T – Can you now let go of what was attached to you?
C – Yes of course.
Social recognition was more important to the father than his own daughter. The client realises that she no longer needs an apology that is not freely given. She can shed her “feeling guilty” like a lead coat.
The soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing can become free again as far as this problem is concerned, and the negative emotional and thought patterns can be overcome.
– Occupy and burden a place –
Another remnant of soul parts of the deceased that have not yet found their way into the light can be found. In their lost state they can also remain at the site of an accident or the misfortune they have experienced, weighing down and darkening the atmosphere of this place with their unresolved negative emotions. They still remain in the neighbourhood due to confusion, to lack of awareness or to still being focussed on their constricting feelings and unfulfilled desires. If a soul enters the place with an unconscious openness in a similar emotional state, they can cling to it.
Stuck soul fragments are often found on former battlefields and in places where many have died, such as cemeteries and hospitals. Children who die in hospital, without their parents, frightened and in panic often can’t find their way into the light and do easily join another child who is still alive also lying there, frightened and alone.
Addiction clinics are often very overcrowded. Unconsciously deceased addicts often attach themselves to living addicts with the very urge they know in order to continue to satisfy their addiction.
How can the interventions mentioned be fruitful in providing support at the end of life as part of a psychotherapeutic end-of-life care?
In the preparation on the way to the threshold:
– Talking about ideas of a post-death existence to be prepared, after crossing the threshold I can only see what I have developed as thought or image.
– Asking about funeral and memorial service wishes to accompany the soul letting go of the body more easily.
– Encouraging the resolution of unresolved issues, e.g. that no “I have to take care of …” remains and the soul may not be able to let go.
– Taking leave from friends and family members as an active act.
– Enquiring about any remaining promises and giving the opportunity of consciously reconsider them: Is this still what I want?
– Talking about still existing longings and wishes and to give them some expressions. Is something still weighing you down? Are there still feelings of guilt? It can still be integrated as belonging to oneself and heal the soul. The soul does not have to take emotional baggage with it if the conscious mind can clear it up beforehand.
– In a biographical conversation with a woman, when it comes to whether something is still burdening her one can ask very specifically: Have there been abortions or terminations of pregnancy that have not yet been dealt with? Explicitly asking her “Have you been able to say goodbye to that little soul yet?” The souls that are just incarnating, who are not yet so firmly in the body and just want to live in a body, often cannot consciously feel that this small body is dying and passing away. So, they often remain attached to the mother’s energetic field. It is helpful then if the mother can enter into an inner dialogue with the little soul, tell her about her situation with her feelings and the earthly facts. And ask the unborn soul: How did you want to become? That the soul can show itself and can be seen at least once. And they both can consciously say goodbye to each other.
This can possibly be emphasised by a farewell ritual. Seriously performed actions are a spiritual reality.
In regressions, it is a proven intervention to first connect the client with good and positive aspects of life, which often lie in childhood, and thus strengthen resources before going through a difficult event.
An experience of my own: With a friend who was aware that she didn’t have much time left with an oncological illness, we did a regression to her own happy inner child. An intervention I have learned from my colleagues Chanda and Christoph von Keyserlingk.
During the process, she was able to visualise the carefree joy of the little ones and rediscover a deep cheerfulness within herself. This was a valuable source of support and strength for her on her further journey.
But even when, from our point of view, a person has crossed the threshold, we can still provide support as surviving dependants, professionally or as relatives.
Rudolf Steiner says about the contact between the living and the deceased in the lecture of 22 February 1916: “The souls that are still here in the physical body have met the deceased souls here on earth and carry an inner image of them. Into this image, however, these souls can weave that which is then like warming spiritual nourishment for the dead, through their thoughts of him, through their continuing love for him, the memory of him.“
So, we can, if it seems necessary due to the dying situation, the general circumstances or our feelings, still be helpful:
– By visualising and making explicit “You died there“, illustrating the earthly facts in relation to the physical situation.
– By conveying imaginatively descriptive-vivid ideas of the post-mortal state of being, conforming the fact that the body dies, but the soul lives on. Or drawing attention to the surrounding light or to the own angel depending on the believes of the gone one.
– By asking previously deceased souls who were connected to the person in question for light-filled accompaniment into the soul realm.
– Even now, actively from our side, we can release promises or supposed obligations, like reassure and confirm that I as the still living one can take care of myself. Or actively apologise, forgive and pardon, or honour and acknowledge what has connected us.
– Farewells that have not been completed can be made up still.
Sincere inner devotion always has a real effect.
In general, could we carefully deal with ritualised actions. So perhaps it is not the best idea to establish memorial candles, flowers etc. at accident sites for long periods of time. It might energetically bind the soul to that very place.
