The Blavatsky Trust: After Death States and Processes

AFTER DEATH STATES AND PROCESSES
AFTER DEATH STATE	PROCESS	NOTES
Dying	Memory dislodging from physical brain. Review of past life.		No possibility of an Ego, other than a pre-mature death, communicating with the living, even through a medium, during this period.
Just After Death	Person unconscious, the three lower principles abandoned. Loss of perceptive faculties forever; loss of spiritual powers of cognition and volition for the time being.	Mayavi-rupa may appear as loved one.
Death "Struggle"	Person, normally unconscious, in Kama-Ioka, in earth's atmosphere. Struggle develops between 4th and 5th principles and 6th and 7th principles for spiritual content of past life experience.
Gestation	Assimilation of spiritual content by Ego (upper 5th and 6th principles) - Ego and person unconscious.
Entry into Devachan	Second review of previous life. 4th and 5th principles sloughed off to become "shell." Consciousness slowly returns to Ego. A dim consciousness and personal memory returns to the "shell".
Devachan	Ego now conscious again. Subjective dream-like state. All scenes, population and activities are as the ex-person would have most liked them. Ego knows nothing of what is going on on Earth	Persons "en rapport" with Devachanees can, by raising their consciousness, feel to be communicating with them.
Rebirth	Ego relapses into unconsciousness at end of Devachan period. New personality will give expression to the Skandhas, the residual tendencies and characteristics from previous lives. Ego may have pre-vision of next life.	We cannot, in the ,ordinary way, modify on Skandhas after death. This can only be done in the world of causes, i.e., in life on Earth.