After purification an entirely new state of consciousness begins for the ego. Whereas before death the outer perceptions must flow to the ego, in order that upon these perceptions the light of consciousness might be able to fall, so now in like manner from within, streams a world which attains consciousness. The ego is living in this world also between birth and death; only then this world is clothed in the manifestations of the senses. It is only when the ego, freed from all the ties of sense, turns inward to behold its own “holy of holies,” that its true innermost nature, which had hitherto been obscured by the senses, is revealed to it. In the same way that the ego is recognized inwardly before death, so, after death and purification, is the spiritual life inwardly revealed to it in all its fulness. This revelation really takes place immediately after the etheric body is laid aside; but it is obscured by the dark cloud of desires turned toward the outer world. It is as though a world of spiritual bliss were invaded by black demoniacal phantoms, caused by those desires which are being destroyed by the “consuming fire.” Indeed, these desires are not mere phantoms, but real entities, which become apparent immediately after the ego is deprived of physical organs, and is thus able to discern those things which are of a spiritual nature. These entities have the appearance of distorted caricatures of the objects with which the individual had formerly become acquainted through his senses. Clairvoyant observation shows that this place of purging fire is peopled by beings whose appearance may well seem horrifying and painful to spiritual vision, whose pleasure seems to consist in destruction, and whose passions impel them to evil-doing of such a description that the evil of the physical world seems insignificant in comparison. Whatever desires of the kind described above are brought into that world by man, are looked upon by these beings as food, by means of which their powers are continually strengthened and invigorated.