II. Forces of Karmic Preparation in the Cosmos

When the etheric body is dissolved, that is, when the thoughts have been breathed-in by the Angels, Archangels and Archai, then, after a few days, man enters into that backward course of life which I have described to you. There he experiences his deeds, his impulses of will, his tendencies of thought, in the way in which they worked on other men, to whom he did either good or evil. He enters right into the minds and feelings of other men. He does not live in his own mind. With the clear consciousness that it is his concern, he undergoes all that took place in the depths of other human beings' souls, with whom he entered into any kind of karmic relationship,—to whom he did anything whatever good or ill. And once again it shows itself, how that which the human being thus experiences is received. He experiences it in fullness of reality—a reality, which I had to describe not long ago as a reality more real than that of the senses between birth and death. He experiences a reality in the midst of which he stands more fully, more glowingly than in any reality of this earthly life down here.