For instance, a man who died in his sixtieth year, and who at the age of forty had, in an outburst of anger, caused some one either physical or mental pain, will go through this experience again when, on the return journey of existence after death, he reaches that point in his fortieth year; but now he does not experience the satisfaction which his attack had afforded him during life; instead, he experiences the pain which he inflicted upon the other man. It may at once be seen, however, that whatever pain he feels in the after-death experience is caused by a desire of the ego arising only from the outer physical world; in reality the ego does not only injure another by the indulgence of such a desire, but it also injures itself; although the injury to itself is not apparent during life. After death, however, the whole of the harmful world of desires becomes visible to the ego, which then feels attracted toward every being or object which had kindled the desire, in order that this may be destroyed in the “consuming fire” by the same means that created it. When man, on his return journey, reaches the moment of his birth, then only have all such desires been purged in the purifying flames, and henceforth nothing remains to hinder him from devoting himself entirely to the spiritual world. He enters upon a new phase of existence. In the same way that he laid aside his physical body at death and, soon afterward, his etheric body, so does that part of his astral body dissolve which can only live in the consciousness of the outer physical world. Occult science, therefore, recognizes three corpses,—the physical, etheric, and astral. The period at which the last is cast off by man is marked by the time of purification, which amounts to about one third of the time elapsed between birth and death. The reason why this is so can only be explained later, when the course of human life is examined from the standpoint of occult science. To clairvoyant observation, astral corpses, which have been cast off by human beings passing from the state of purification into a higher existence, are constantly visible in the world surrounding man, in exactly the same way that physical corpses, in places inhabited by men, are apparent to physical observation.(6)