[Carl Jung on the need the Dead Souls have for the Living.]

Later, when I wrote the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos, once again it was the dead who addressed crucial questions to me.

They came so they said “back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought.”

This had surprised me greatly at the time, for according to the traditional views the dead are the possessors of great knowledge.

People have the idea that the dead know far more than we, for Christian doctrine teaches that in the hereafter we shall “see face to face.”

Apparently, however, the souls of the dead “know” only what they knew at the moment of death, and nothing beyond that.

Hence their endeavor to penetrate into life in order to share in the knowledge of men.

I frequently have a feeling that they are standing directly behind us, waiting to hear what answer…