These denizens of the spiritual world are at present working in co-operation with that which man has brought with him as the product of his last life, which now becomes a germ; and through this co-operation man is, first of all, built up anew as a spiritual being. The physical and etheric bodies are still joined in sleep; the astral body and the ego are, it is true, outside them, but still connected with them. Whatever influences the astral body and the ego receive, in such a state, from the spiritual world, can serve only to recuperate the forces exhausted during the waking state. But when the physical and etheric bodies have been laid aside, and, after the time of purification, also those parts of the astral body still bound by their desires to the physical world, then everything pouring in upon the ego from the spiritual world is not only a reforming but a reorganizing force. After a certain period, to be dealt with in later chapters, the ego again gathers round it an astral body which will be able to live in such an etheric and physical body as man possesses between birth and death. A man can once more pass through birth and renew his earthly existence, in which, however, will be incorporated the results of his former life. Until the rebuilding of his astral body, man is a witness of his reconstruction. As the powers of the spirit-world are not manifested to him through external organs, but from within outward, like his own ego in self-consciousness, he is able to observe that manifestation as long as his attention is not turned to an outer world of perception. But from the moment that the astral body is reconstituted, his attention is turned outward; the astral body once more craves an outer etheric and physical body. It is thus turned away from the inner revelations. For this reason there is now an intermediate state, during which man is immersed in unconsciousness. Consciousness can emerge again in the physical world only when the necessary organs for physical perception are formed. During this period, in which consciousness illuminated by inner perception ceases, the new etheric body begins to link itself to the astral and man can once again enter a physical body. In the linking together of these two bodies only such an ego could consciously take part as had of itself created the Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man out of the creative forces, hidden in the etheric and physical bodies. Until the individual has evolved as far as this, beings further advanced than himself in evolution must guide this linking together. The astral body is guided, by such beings as these, to parents through whom it may be endowed with the appropriate etheric and physical bodies. Before the attachment of the etheric body takes place, something of very great importance happens to the man who is about to re-enter physical existence.