h a way that he adapts
himself to the conditions of the world and of life, and occupies himself
within them, in accordance with the principles active through his ego,--the
sentient,- the intellectual- and the consciousness-soul. Then there comes
a time in which the etheric body retraces the process of its development
from the seventh year onward, in reverse order. At first the astral body
has so developed itself that it unfolds that which was present within it
at birth as a germ. After the birth of the ego, this astral body enriches
itself by experiencing the outer world. Finally, at a definite time, it
begins to nourish itself spiritually by consuming its own etheric body; it
actually lives upon the etheric body. The decay of the physical body in
old age is a consequence of this.

The course of human life therefore falls into three divisions: a time of
unfoldment for the physical and etheric bodies, then one in which the
astral body and the ego develop, and lastly that in which the etheric and
physical bodies are changed back again. But the astral body plays a part
in all the events that take place between birth and death. Since it is
really born in a spiritual sense only between the twelfth and sixteenth
years and must, during man's declining years, draw upon the forces of the
etheric and physical bodies, that which it is able to perform by its own
powers will develop more slowly than if it were not within a physical and
an etheric body. After death, when the physical and etheric bodies have
fallen away, evolution, during the time of purification, proceeds in such
a manner that it occupies about one-third of the duration of life between
birth and death.

The Higher Regions Of The Spiritual World

By imagination, inspiration, and intuition, supersensible cognition
gradually ascends into those regions of the spiritual world within which
it can reach the beings who have to do with human and cosmic evolution.
And thus it also becomes possible to trace human evolution between death
and a new birth in such a way that it becomes comprehensible. Now there
are still higher regions of existence, which can only be briefly indicated
here. When supersensible cognition has risen to intuition, it lives in a
world of spiritual beings. These too, are evolving. That which concerns
humanity of the present day extends upward, in a certain sense, as far as
the world of intuition. True, man receives impulses from yet higher worlds
in the