16. Life After Death

In the physical world, by the physical in man we mean that which is enclosed within his skin, the rest is known as his surroundings, what we experience depends on the functions of our sense organs but also on the heart, lungs and so forth. All this vanishes in the course of our journey between death and a new birth. During the earthly existence our soul-spiritual being is embedded in our physical body, and it lives on the activity of our organs. After death the part that leaves the physical and etheric bodies grows ever larger, and a time comes when what is otherwise contained within the boundary of the skin expands so far as to fill the whole circumference of the orbit of the Moon. The soul-spirit gradually grows right up to the Mercury and Venus spheres, and farther to the Mars, Jupiter and Saturn spheres, and even beyond into the universe. Later it contracts again and unites itself as a tiny spirit-germ with the stream of heredity that prepares its physical body through father and mother. This description agrees with what has been written in Theosophy. The Spirit Land begins in the Mars sphere.