1. On the Nature and Destiny of Man and World

This separation takes place in such manner that the human being, having passed through the portal of death, feels his thoughts, heretofore considered by him as something inward, becoming realities which acquire ever greater expansion. Two, three or four days after his death man has this feeling: Fundamentally, I consist of nothing but thoughts. These thoughts, however, are driven asunder. The human being, as a thought-being, takes on ever greater dimensions; and finally this whole human thought-being is dissolved into the cosmos. But the more this thought-being (that is, the etheric body) is dissolved into the cosmos, the more arise experiences derived from other sources than ordinary consciousness.