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It is evident to any one who studies the works of many earnest men of science, produced during the first half of the nineteenth century, that at that time many a genuine investigator of nature was conscious of some factor acting within the living body other than in the lifeless mineral. It was termed "vital force." It is true this vital force is not represented as being what has been above characterized as the vital body, but underlying the conception was a dim idea of the existence of such a body. Vital force was generally regarded as something which in a living body was united with physical matter and forces in the same way that the force of a magnet unites itself with iron. Then came the time when vital force was banished from the domain of science. Mere physical and chemical causes were accounted all sufficient.

At the present moment, however, there is a reaction in this respect in some scientific quarters. It is sometimes conceded that the hypothesis of something of the nature of "vital force" is not pure nonsense. Yet even the scientist who concedes this much is not willing to make common cause with the occultist with regard to the vital body. As a rule, it serves no useful purpose to enter upon a discussion of such views from the standpoint of occult science. It should be much more the concern of the occultist to recognize that the materialistic way of thinking is a necessary concomitant phenomenon of the great advance of natural science in our day. This advance is due to the vast improvements in the instruments used in sense-observation. And it is in the very nature of man to bring some of his faculties to a certain degree of perfection at the expense of others. Exact sense-observation, which has been evolved to such an important extent by natural science, was bound to leave in the background the cultivation of those human faculties which lead into the hidden worlds. But the time has come when this cultivation is once more necessary; and recognition of the invisible will not be won by combating opinions which are the logical outcome of a denial of its existence, but rather by setting the invisible in the right light. Then it will be recognized by those for whom the "time has come."

It was necessary to say this much, in order that it may not be imagined that occult science is ignorant of the standpoint of natural science when mention is made of an "etheric body," which, in many circles must necessarily be considered as purely imaginary.

Thus the etheric body is the second principle of the human being. For the clairvoyant, it possesses a higher degree of reality than the physical body. A description of how it is seen by the clairvoyant can be given only in later parts of this book, when the sense in which such descriptions are to be taken will become manifest. For the present it will be enough to say that the etheric body penetrates the physical body in all its parts, and is to be regarded as a kind of architect of the latter. All the physical organs are maintained in their form and shape by the currents and movements of the etheric body. The physical heart is based upon an etheric heart, the physical brain, upon an etheric brain, and the physical, with this difference, that in the etheric body the parts flow into one another in active motion, whereas in the physical body they are separated from each other.

Man has this etheric body in common with all plants, just as he has the physical body in common with minerals. Everything living has its etheric body.

The study of occult science proceeds upwards from the etheric body to another principle of the human being. To aid in the formation of an idea of this principle, it draws attention to the phenomenon of sleep, just as in connection with the etheric body attention was drawn to death. All human work, so far as the manifested world is concerned, is dependent upon activity during waking life. But that activity is possible only as long as man is able to recuperate his exhausted forces by sleep. Action and thought disappear, pain and pleasure fade away during sleep, and on re-awaking, man's conscious powers ascend from the unconsciousness of sleep as though from hidden mysterious sources of energy. It is the same consciousness which sinks down into dim depths on falling asleep and ascends from them again on re-awaking.

That which awakens life again out of this state of unconsciousness is, according to occult science, the third principle of the human being. It is called the astral body. Just as the physical body cannot keep its form by means of the mineral substances and forces it contains, but must, in order to be kept together, be interpenetrated by the etheric body, so is it impossible for the forces of the etheric body to illuminate themselves with the light of consciousness. An etheric body left to its own resources would be in a permanent state of sleep. An etheric body awake, is illuminated by an astral body. This astral body seems to sense-observation to disappear when man falls asleep; to clairvoyant observation it is still present, with the difference that it appears separated from or drawn out of the etheric body. Sense-observation has nothing to do with the astral body itself, but only with its effects in the manifested world, and these cease during sleep. In the same sense in which man possesses his physical body in common with plants, he resembles animals as regards his astral body.

The fourth principle of being which occult science attributes to man is one which he does not share in common with the rest of the manifested world. It is that which differentiates him from his fellow creatures and makes him the crown of creation. Occult science helps in forming a conception of this further principle of human nature by pointing out the existence of an essential difference between the kinds of experience in waking life. On the one hand, man is constantly subjected to experiences which must of necessity come and go; on the other, he has experiences with which this is not the case. This fact comes out with special force if human experiences are compared with those of animals. An animal experiences the influences of the outer world with great regularity; under the influence of heat and cold it becomes conscious of pain or pleasure, and during certain regularly recurring bodily processes it feels hunger and thirst. The sum total of man's life is not exhausted by such experiences; he is able to develop desires and wishes which go beyond these things. In the case of an animal it would always be possible, on going far enough into the matter, to ascertain the cause--either within or without its body--which impelled it to any given act or feeling. This is by no means the case with man. He may engender wishes and desires for which no adequate cause exists either inside or outside of his body. A particular source must be found for everything in this domain; and according to occult science this source is to be found in the human "I" or "ego." Therefore the ego will be spoken of as the fourth principle of the human being.

Were the astral body left to its own resources, feelings of pleasure and pain, and sensations of hunger and thirst, would take place within it, but there would be lacking the consciousness of something lasting in all these feelings. It is not the permanent as such, which is here designated the "ego," but rather that which experiences this permanent element. In this domain, conceptions must be very exactly expressed if misunderstandings are not to arise. With the becoming aware of something permanent, lasting, within the changing inner experiences, begins the dawn of "ego consciousness."

The sensation of hunger, for instance, cannot give a creature the feeling of having an ego. Hunger sets in when the recurring causes make themselves felt in the being concerned, which then devours its food just because these recurring conditions are present. For the ego-consciousness to arise, there must not only be these recurring conditions, urging the being to take food, but there must have been pleasure derived from previous satisfaction of hunger, and the consciousness of the pleasure must have remained, so that not only the present experience of hunger but the past experience of pleasure urges the being to take nourishment.

Just as the physical body falls into decay if the etheric body does not keep it together, and as the etheric body sinks into unconsciousness if not illuminated by the astral body, so the astral body would necessarily allow the past to be lost in oblivion unless the ego rescued the past by carrying it over into the present. What death is to the physical body and sleep to the etheric, the power of forgetting is to the astral body. We may put this in another way, and say that life is the special characteristic of the etheric body, consciousness that of the astral body, and memory that of the ego.

It is still easier to make the mistake of attributing memory to an animal than that of attributing consciousness to a plant. It is so natural to think of memory when a dog recognizes its master, whom perhaps it has not seen for some time; yet in reality the recognition is not due to memory at all, but to something quite different. The dog feels a certain attraction toward its master which proceeds from the personality of the latter. This gives the dog a sense of pleasure whenever its master is present, and every time this happens it is a cause of the repetition of the pleasure. But memory only exists in a being when he not only feels his present experiences, but retains those of the past. A person might admit this, and yet fall into the error of thinking the dog has memory. For it might be said that the dog pines when its master leaves it, and therefore it retains a remembrance of him. This too is an inaccurate opinion. Living with its master has made his presence a condition of well-being to the dog, and it feels his absence much in the same way in which it feels hunger. One who does not make these distinctions will not arrive at a clear understanding of the true conditions of life.

Memory and forgetfulness have for the ego much the same significance that waking and sleeping have for the astral body. Just as sleep banishes into nothingness the cares and troubles of the day, so does forgetfulness draw a veil over the sad experiences of life and efface part of the past. And just as sleep is necessary for the recuperation of the exhausted vital forces, so must a man blot out from his memory certain portions of his past life if he is to face his new experiences freely and without prejudice. It is out of this very forgetfulness that strength arises for the perception of new facts. Let us take the case of learning to write. All the details which a child has to go through in this process are forgotten. What remains is the ability to write. How would a person ever be able to write if each time he took up his pen all his experiences in learning to write rose up before his mind?

Now there are many different degrees of memory. Its simplest form is manifest when a person perceives an object and, after turning away from it, retains its image in his mind. He formed the image while looking at the object, A process was then carried out between his astral body and his ego. The astral body lifted into consciousness the outward impression of the object, but knowledge of the object would last only as long as the thing itself was present, unless the ego absorbed the knowledge into itself and made it its own.

Man conquers his astral body by pushing through to the hidden forces lying behind it; a similar thing happens, at a later stage of development, to the etheric body: but the work on the latter is more arduous, for what is hidden in the etheric body is enveloped in two veils, but what is hidden in the astral body in only one. Occult science gives an idea of the difference in the work on the two bodies by pointing out certain changes which may take place in man in the course of his development. Let us at first think of the way in which certain soul-qualities of man develop when the ego works upon the soul; how pleasures and desires, joys and sorrows, may change. We have only to look back to our childhood. What gave us pleasure then, what caused us pain? What have we learned in addition to what we knew as children? All this is but an expression of the way in which the ego has gained the mastery over the astral body, for it is this principle which is the vehicle of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. Compared with these things, how little in the course of time do certain other human qualities change, for example, the temperament, the deeper peculiarities of the character, and like qualities. A passionate child will often retain certain tendencies to sudden anger during its development in later life.

This is such a striking fact that there are thinkers who entirely deny the possibility of changing the fundamental character. They assume that it is something permanent throughout life, and that it is merely a question of its being manifested in one way or another. But such an opinion is due to defective observation. To one who is capable of seeing such things, it is evident that even the character and temperament of a person may be transformed under the influence of his ego. It is true that this change is slow in comparison with the change in the qualities before mentioned. We may compare the relation to each other of the rates of change in the two bodies to the movements of the hour-hand and minute-hand of a clock. Now the forces which bring about a change of character or temperament belong to the hidden forces of the etheric body. They are of the same nature as the forces which govern the kingdom of life,--the same, therefore, as the forces of growth, nutrition, and generation. Further explanations in this work will throw the right light on these things.

Thus it is not when man simply gives himself up to pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, that the ego is working on the astral body, but when the peculiarities of these qualities of the soul are changed; and the work is extended in the same way to the etheric body, when the ego applies its energies to changing the character or temperament. This change, too, is one in which every person living is engaged, whether consciously or not. The most powerful incitement to this kind of change in ordinary life is that given by religion. If the ego allows the impulses which flow from religion to work upon it again and again, they become a power within it which extends to the etheric body and changes it as lesser impulses in life effect the transformation of the astral body. These lesser impulses, which come to man through study, reflection, the ennobling of feeling, and so on, are subject to the manifold changes of existence; but religious feelings impress a certain stamp of uniformity upon all thinking, feeling, and willing. They diffuse an equal and single light over the whole life of the soul.

Man thinks and feels one thing to-day, another to-morrow, the causes of which are of many different kinds; but one who, consistently holding to his religious convictions, has a glimpse of something which persists through all changes, will relate his thoughts and feelings of to-day, as well as his experiences of to-morrow, to that fundamental feeling he possesses. Thus religious belief has the power of permeating the whole of the soul-life. Its influences increase in strength as time goes on because they are constantly repeated. Hence they acquire the power of working upon the etheric body.

Man's intellectual development, the purification and ennobling of his feelings and of the manifestations of his will, are the measure of the degree in which he has transformed the astral body into the Spirit-Self. His religious experiences, as well as many others, are stamped upon the etheric body, making it into the Life-Spirit. In the ordinary course of life this happens more or less unconsciously; so-called initiation, on the contrary, consists in man's being directed by occult science to the means through which he may quite consciously take in hand this work on the Spirit-Self and Life-Spirit. These means will be dealt with in later parts of this book. In the meantime it is important to show that, besides the soul and the body, the spirit also is working within man. It will be seen later how this spirit belongs to the eternal part of man, as contrasted with the perishable body.

Again, with regard to the Spirit-Man, it is easy to make a mistake. In the physical body we see man's lowest principle, and on this account find it hard to realize that the work on that body should be accomplished by the highest principle of the human entity. But just because the spirit active within the physical body is hidden under three veils, the highest kind of human effort is needed in order to make the ego one with that which is the hidden spiritual energy of the body.

Occult science, therefore, represents man as a being composed of many principles. Those of a bodily nature are:

the physical body, the etheric or vital body, the astral body.

The soul-principles are:

the sentient-soul, the intellectual- or rational-soul, the consciousness-soul.

It is in the soul that the ego diffuses its light. Of a spiritual nature are:

the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, the Spirit-Man.

It follows from what was said above that the sentient-soul and the astral body are closely united and in a certain sense are one. Similarly, the consciousness-soul and the Spirit-Self form a whole, for in the consciousness-soul the spirit shines forth, and thence irradiates with its light the other principles of the human being. Hence occult science also speaks of man's organization as follows. The intellectual-soul is simply called the ego, because it partakes of the nature of the ego, and in a certain sense is the ego, not yet conscious of its spiritual nature. We thus have seven divisions of man:

physical body; etheric or vital body; astral body; Ego; Spirit-Self; Life-Spirit; Spirit-Man.

Even one accustomed to materialistic habits of thought would not find in this sevenfold organization of man the "fanciful magic" often attributed to the number seven, if one would only keep strictly to the meaning of the above explanations without himself injecting arbitrarily the idea of something magical into the matter. Occult science speaks of these seven principles of man in exactly the same way, only from the standpoint of a higher form of observation of the world, as allusion is commonly made to the seven colours that make up white light, or to the seven notes of the scale . As light appears in seven colours, and sound in seven tones, so is the unity of man's nature manifested in the seven principles described. No more superstition attaches to the number seven in the case of occult science than when associated with the spectrum or with the scale.

The nature of waking consciousness cannot be fathomed without observing that condition which man experiences during sleep, and the problem of life cannot be approached without studying death. Any one failing to perceive the importance of occult science may distrust the manner in which it studies sleep and death. Occult science is, however, capable of appreciating the motives from which such distrust arises. For there is nothing incomprehensible in the assertion that man exists for an active, purposeful life, that his acts depend on his devotion thereto, and that absorption in such conditions as sleep and death can result only from a taste for idle dreaming, and can lead to nothing else than vain imaginings.

The real fact of the matter is this, that just as a man cannot always be awake, so neither is he sufficiently equipped for the actual conditions of life, in its entire range, without that which occult science has to offer him. Life continues during sleep, and the forces which work and labour during the waking state draw their strength and refreshment from that which sleep gives them. It is thus with the things under our observation in the manifested world. The boundaries of the world are wider than the field of this observation; and what man recognizes in the visible must be supplemented and fertilized by what he is able to know of the invisible world. A man who did not continually renew his exhausted forces by sleep, would bring his life to destruction; and in the same way a view of the world which is not fertilized by a knowledge of the unseen, must lead to a feeling of desolation.

It is similarly so with regard to death. Living creatures fall a prey to death in order that new life may arise. It is occult science which throws light on Goethe's beautiful phrase: "Nature invented Death in order to have much Life." Just as in the ordinary sense there could be no life without death, so can there be no real knowledge of the visible world without insight into the invisible. All discernment of the visible must plunge again and again into the invisible in order to develop. Thus it is evident that occult science alone makes the life of revealed knowledge possible. When it emerges in its true form it never enfeebles life, but strengthens it and ever renews its freshness and health, when, left to its own resources, it has become weak and diseased.

When a man sinks into sleep the connection between his principles changes, as described earlier in this work. The part of the sleeping man which lies upon his couch comprises the physical and etheric bodies, but not the astral body and not the ego. It is because the etheric body remains bound to the physical body in sleep that the life-activities continue. For the moment the physical body is left to itself, it must of necessity fall into decay. The things that are extinguished in sleep are ideas, pain, pleasure, joy, grief, the ability to express conscious will, and similar facts of existence. But the astral body is the vehicle of all these things. That the astral body, with all its joy and sorrow, its realm of thought and will, is annihilated in sleep is an opinion that cannot be entertained by an unbiased judgment; it exists still, but in another condition. In order that the human ego and the astral body may not only be endowed with pleasure and pain and all the other things we have named, but also have a conscious perception of them, it is necessary that the astral body should be united with the physical and etheric bodies. This is the case during waking life, but not in sleep. The astral body has withdrawn itself from the other bodies. It has adopted another kind of existence than that which it possesses while united with the physical and etheric bodies. Now it is the task of occult science to study this other kind of existence in the astral body. During sleep, the astral body withdraws from the possibility of external observation and occult science must trace it in its hidden life, until it again takes possession of its physical and etheric bodies on waking.

As in all cases when knowledge of the hidden things and events of life have to be dealt with, clairvoyant observation is necessary for the discovery of the real facts of the sleep state in its true nature, but if that which may be discovered by this means has once been made clear, it is comprehensible to really unprejudiced thought without further demonstration. For events in the unseen world show themselves by their effects in the manifested world. If what is revealed by clairvoyant vision is an explanation of visible events, such a confirmation by life itself is the proof which may rightly be demanded. Even one who will not use the means to be given later for the attainment of clairvoyant vision, may have the following experience: he may, in the first place, take the statements of the clairvoyant for granted, and then apply them to the material events within his experience. He will then find that life thereby becomes clear and comprehensible; and the more exact and minute his observations of ordinary life, the more readily will he come to this conclusion.

Even though the astral body during sleep passes through no experiences, though it is not conscious of pleasure, pain, and the like, it does not remain inactive. On the contrary, it is a fact that active work is its function in the sleep state. For it is the astral body which strengthens and recuperates man's forces, exhausted during waking life. As long as the astral body is united with the physical and etheric bodies it is related to the outer world through these two bodies. They convey to it perceptions and representations. Through the impressions which they receive from their surroundings, it experiences pleasure and pain. Now the physical body can be preserved in the form and shape suitable to the individual only by means of the human etheric body. But this human form can be preserved only by an etheric body which on its part receives corresponding forces from the astral body. The etheric body is the builder, the architect, of the physical body. It can, however, construct in the true sense only when it receives from the astral body the impulse as to the manner in which it must build. In this latter are contained the models, according to which the etheric body gives the physical body its form. During our waking hours these models for the physical body are not present in the astral body, or, at least, only to a certain extent. For in waking life the soul replaces these models with its own images. When a person directs his senses upon his environment he thus creates in his ideas pictures which are copies of the world around him. In fact these copies at first disturb the prototypes which give the etheric body the impulse to preserve the physical body. Such disturbance could not be present if a man, by virtue of his own activity, could convey to his astral body those pictures which would give the right impulse to the etheric body. Yet this very disturbance plays an important part in human life, and is able to express itself because the models for the etheric body do not come into full play in the waking life. This fact is revealed by "fatigue." Now, during sleep, no external impressions disturb the force of the astral body. Therefore in this condition it can expel fatigue. The work of the astral body during sleep consists in removing fatigue, and it can accomplish this only by leaving the physical and etheric bodies. During waking life the astral body does its work within the physical body; during sleep it works on the latter from without.

For instance, just as the physical body has need of the outer world, which is of like substance with itself, for its supply of food, something of the same kind takes place in the case of the astral body. Let us imagine a physical human body removed from the surrounding world: it would die. That shows that physical life is an impossibility without the entire physical environment. In fact, the whole earth must be just as it is if physical human bodies are to exist upon it. For, in reality, the whole human body is only a part of the earth,--indeed, in a wider sense, part of the whole physical universe. In this respect it is related in the same sense as, for example, the finger of a hand to the entire human body. Separate the finger from the hand and it cannot remain a finger: it withers away. Such would also be the fate of the human body were it removed from that body of which it is a member,--from the conditions of life with which the earth provides it. Let it be raised above the surface of the earth but a sufficient number of miles and it will perish as the finger perishes when cut off from the hand. If this fact is less apparent in the case of a man's physical organism than in that of his finger and his body, it is merely because the finger cannot walk about on the body as man is able to do on the earth, and because on that account the dependence of the former is more obvious.

In the same way that the physical body is embedded in the physical world to which it belongs, so does the astral body form a part of its own world, only it is torn out of it in waking life. We can form a clear idea of what happens by having recourse to an analogy. Imagine a vessel filled with water. No one drop is a separate thing in itself within that entire mass of water. But let us take a little sponge and with it suck up a single drop from the whole mass of water. Something of this kind happens to the human astral body on awaking. During sleep it is in a world resembling its own nature. In a certain sense it forms part of it. On awaking, the physical and etheric bodies suck it up: they absorb it; they contain the organs through which it perceives the outer world. In order to achieve this perception it has to leave its own world, for it is in that world alone that it can receive the models which it needs for the etheric body.

Just as food is supplied to the physical body from its surroundings, so are the pictures of the world surrounding the astral body presented to it during the state of sleep. There, indeed, it lives in the universe, beyond the physical and etheric bodies: in that same universe out of which the whole man is born. The source of the images by means of which man receives his form is in this universe. He is linked in harmony with it; and when he awakens he rises above the surface of this all-pervading harmony to attain external perception. In sleep his astral body returns to the universal harmony. He brings so much strength from it to his bodies on awaking that he can once more dispense for a time with sojourning in the realm of harmony. The astral body returns during sleep to its home, and, on awaking, brings back into life freshly invigorated forces. That which the astral body thus gains, and brings with it on waking, finds its outer expression in the refreshment afforded by sound sleep.

It should be superfluous to point out that a misunderstanding might easily arise with regard to these facts; in our time, however, when certain materialistic modes of representation exist, it becomes quite necessary to draw attention to them. In quarters where such representation prevails it may, of course, be said that such a thing as fatigue can be scientifically investigated only in accordance with physical conditions. Even if the learned are not yet unanimous with regard to the physical cause of fatigue, one thing is quite firmly established; we must accept certain physical processes which lie at the root of this phenomenon. It would be well, however, if it were recognized that occult science does not in any way oppose this assertion. It admits everything that is said in this connection, just as it is admitted that for the physical erection of a house one brick must be laid upon another, and that when the house is finished its form and construction can be explained by purely mechanical laws. But the thought of the architect is necessary for the building of the house. This cannot be discovered merely by examination of physical laws.

Just as the thought of the creator of a house stands behind the physical laws which make it explicable, so too, behind what is affirmed, with perfect accuracy by physical science, stands that of which occult science treats. This comparison is of course often put forward when the justification for a spiritual background to the world is in question; and it may be considered a trivial one. But what is important in such matters is not familiarity with certain conceptions, but that the proper weight should be given them in establishing a fact. One may be prevented from doing this simply because contrary ideas have so much power over the judgment that this weight is not felt.

Dreaming is an intermediate state between sleeping and waking. What dream experiences offer to thoughtful observation is the many-coloured interweaving of a picture-world, which nevertheless conceals within itself some sort of law and order. At first this world seems to have an ebb and flow, often in confused succession. Man in his dream-life is set free from the laws of waking consciousness which bind him to sense-perception and the laws of reason. And yet dreams have some sort of mysterious law, attractive and fascinating to human speculation, and this is the deeper reason why the beautiful play of imagination lying at the root of artistic feeling is always apt to be compared to dreaming. We need only recall a few characteristic dreams to find this corroborated. A man dreams, for example, that he is driving off a dog that is attacking him. He wakes, and finds himself in the act of unconsciously pushing off part of the bedclothes which had been lying on an unaccustomed part of his body and which had therefore become oppressive. What is it that dream-life makes, in this instance, out of an incident perceptible to the senses? In the first place, it leaves in complete unconsciousness what the senses would perceive in the waking state. But it holds fast to something essential--namely, the fact that the man wishes to repel something; and round about this it weaves a metaphorical occurrence.

The pictures, as such, are echoes of waking life. There is something arbitrary in the way in which they are drawn from it. Every one feels that the same external cause may conjure up various dream-pictures. But they give symbolic expression to the feeling that one has something to ward off. The dream creates symbols; it is a symbolist. Inner experiences can also be transformed into such dream-symbols. A man dreams that a fire is crackling beside him; he sees flames in his dream. He wakes up feeling that he is too heavily covered and has become too warm. The feeling of too great warmth expresses itself symbolically in the picture. Quite dramatic experiences may be enacted in a dream. For example, some one dreams that he is standing on the edge of a precipice. He sees a child running toward it. The dream makes him experience all the tortures of the thought--if only the child will not be heedless and fall over into the abyss! He sees it fall, and hears the dull thud of the body below. He awakes, and perceives that an object which had been hanging on the wall of the room has become unfastened, and made a dull sound by its fall. This simple event is expressed in dream-life by one which unravels itself in exciting pictures. For the present it is not at all necessary to engage in reflection as to the reason why, in the last example, the moment of the falling of a heavy object expresses itself in a series of events which seem to spread themselves over a certain length of time; it is only necessary to keep in view that the dream transforms into a picture that which would present itself to the waking sense-perception.

We see that the moment the senses cease their activity, creative power asserts itself in man. It is the same creative power which is present in absolutely dreamless sleep, and at that time recuperates man's exhausted forces. For this dreamless sleep to take place, the astral body must be withdrawn from the etheric and physical bodies. During the dream-state it is so far separated from the physical body as to have no further connection with the organs of sense; but it still maintains a certain connection with the etheric body. The capacity for perceiving the experiences of the astral body by means of pictures is due to this connection which it maintains with the etheric body. The moment this connection also ceases, the pictures sink into the obscurity of unconsciousness and dreamless sleep has set in.

The arbitrary and often nonsensical element in dream-pictures arises from the fact that the astral body cannot, on account of its separation from the sense-organs of the physical body, relate its pictures to the correct objects and events of the outer environment. It is especially illuminating, in this matter, to examine a dream in which the ego is, as it were, split up; as, for example in the case of a person who dreams that he is a schoolboy and cannot answer the propounded question, while immediately afterward as the teacher, he himself answers it. The dreamer, being unable to make use of his physical organs of perception, is not able to connect both occurrences with himself, as the same individual. Therefore, in order to recognize himself also as a permanent ego, man must first be equipped with outer organs of perception. Only when he has acquired the faculty of self-consciousness without the aid of such organs will the permanent ego also become perceptible to him outside his physical body. Clairvoyant consciousness has to acquire this faculty, and the method of doing so will be treated in detail later in this work.

Even death takes place for no other cause than a change in the connection of the principles of man's being. And what is visible to clairvoyant observation with regard to death may also be seen in its effects in the manifested world; in this case also, an unbiased judgment will find the teachings of occult science confirmed by observing external life. The expression of the invisible in the visible is, however, less evident with regard to these facts, and there is greater difficulty in feeling the full importance of that which in the events of outer life endorses the statements of occult science in this domain. These statements may be supposed to be mere pictures of fancy, even more readily than many other things that have been dealt with in this work, if we shut ourselves off from the knowledge that everywhere in the visible is contained an unmistakable foreshadowing of the invisible.

On the approach of sleep, only the astral body is released from its connection with the etheric and physical bodies, which still remain united, whereas at death the separation of the physical from the etheric body takes place. The physical body is abandoned to its own forces, and must therefore disintegrate as a corpse. At death the etheric body finds itself in a condition in which it has never been before during the time between birth and death,--with the exception of certain abnormal conditions to be dealt with later. That is to say, it is now united with the astral body in the absence of the physical body; for the etheric and astral bodies do not separate immediately after death: they are held together for a time by the agency of a force the presence of which can be easily understood; for were this force not present the etheric body could not detach itself from the physical body. It would remain bound to the latter, as is shown in the case of sleep, when the astral body is not able to rend asunder these two principles of man's being. This force comes into action at death. It releases the etheric from the physical body, so that the former remains united to the astral body. Clairvoyant observation shows that this connection varies with different people after death. The time of its duration is measured by days. For the present, this period of time is mentioned only for the sake of information.

Subsequently, the astral body is also released from the etheric body and goes on its way alone. During the union of the two bodies, the individual is in a state which enables him to be aware of the experiences of his astral body. As long as the physical body is there, the work of reinforcing the wasted organs has to be begun from without, as soon as the astral body is liberated from it. When once the physical body is separated, this work ceases. Nevertheless, the force which was expended in this way while the man was asleep, continues after death and can now be applied to some other end. It is now used for making the astral body's own experiences perceptible. During his connection with his physical body the outer world enters man's consciousness in images; after the body has been laid aside, that which is experienced by the astral body, when it is no longer connected with sense organs, with this outer physical world, becomes perceptible. At first it has no new experiences. Its connection with the etheric body prevents it from experiencing anything new.

During the period of life between birth and death, separation of the etheric body occurs only in exceptional cases, and for no longer than a brief space of time. If, for example, a man exposes one of his limbs to pressure, part of his etheric body may become separated from the physical one. We say on such occasion that the limb has "gone to sleep," and the peculiar sensation we feel results from the separation of the etheric body. Clairvoyant vision can see in such a case, how the corresponding part of the etheric body extends beyond the physical limb. Now if a man experiences an unusual shock, or something similar, such a separation of the etheric body from a large part of the physical body may result, for a short time. That is the case when a man, for some reason or other, is suddenly brought face to face with death,--for example when drowning, or threatened by a fatal accident when mountaineering. What is related by people who have had such experiences comes, in fact, very near the truth, and can be ratified by clairvoyant observation. They declare that in such moments their whole lives pass before their minds as though in a huge memory-picture.

Neither is it an objection if, for example, some one who was once on the point of drowning did not experience what has been described; for it must be borne in mind that this can happen only when the etheric body is really separated from the physical body,--when, moreover, the former is still united with the astral body. If, through the fright, a loosening of the etheric and astral bodies also takes place, the experience is not forthcoming, because then complete unconsciousness ensues, as in dreamless sleep.

Immediately after death the events of the past appear as though compressed by the memory into a picture. After its separation from the etheric body, the astral body pursues its further wanderings alone. It is not difficult to realize that everything continues to exist which, by means of its activity, the astral body has made its own during its sojourn in the physical body. The ego has to a certain extent elaborated the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Man. As far as these are developed, they do not owe their existence to the organs present in the different bodies, but to the ego; and it is precisely this ego which needs no outer organs for perception; nor does it require any such organs in order to retain possession of what it has made one with itself. It might be objected: "Why then is there no perception during sleep of the developed Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man?" For this reason that the ego is chained to the physical body between birth and death. Even though, during sleep, it is out of the physical body with the astral body it nevertheless remains closely connected with the physical body; for the activity of the astral body is directed toward the physical body. On this account the ego is relegated to the outer world of sense for its observations, and cannot receive spiritual revelations in their direct form. Not until death do these revelations come within reach of the ego, because by means of death the ego is freed from its connection with the physical and etheric bodies. Another world may flash upon the consciousness the moment it is withdrawn from the physical world which during life monopolizes its activity.

Now there are reasons why even at this juncture all connection with the outer physical world of sense does not cease for man. That is to say, certain desires remain which sustain the connection. There are desires which man creates just because he is conscious of his ego as the fourth principle of his being. These desires and wishes, springing from the existence of his three lower bodies, can operate only in the external world, and cease to operate when these bodies are cast aside. Hunger is caused by the external body; as soon as that external body is no longer connected with the ego, hunger ceases. Now, had the ego no further desires than those springing from its own spiritual nature, it might at death draw full satisfaction from the spiritual world into which it is transplanted. But life has given it other desires as well. It has kindled in it a longing for pleasures only to be enjoyed by means of physical organs, although these pleasures themselves do not originate in the nature of those organs. It is not only the three bodies which demand gratification from the physical world, but the ego itself finds pleasures in that world, for the enjoyment of which there exist no means whatever, in the spiritual world.

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