VII. Details From the Domain of Spiritual Science

The life of man is thereby naturally divided into three epochs. First is the time during which the physical and etheric bodies grow and develop. In the middle period the astral body and the *I* come into their own. The third and last is the period of bodily decline when the youthful development of the etheric and physical bodies is in a sense reversed. Now in all these events—from birth until death—the astral body is concerned. Moreover inasmuch as it is not spiritually born until the 12th to 16th year, and in the final epoch is obliged to draw upon the forces of the etheric and physical bodies, what the astral body has to achieve by virtue of its own faculties and forces unfolds at a slower rate than it would do if it were not inhabiting a physical and etheric body. Hence after death (as explained in Chapter III,) when the physical and etheric bodies have been cast off, the evolution of the astral body through the “time of purification” takes about a third as long as the past life between birth and death.