Q. Will you please tell us something about the condition of the soul when it first leaves the body? A. The condition of the ordinary soul is confusion. For before death it has realized that it is dying, and after death it realizes that it lives. And the condition is as that of a person who is still living, and says, "I am dead." As long as this confusion remains, the soul goes no further. It is this state which I would call purgatory. When the soul has recovered itself, and realizes it is living still, then the clouds of confusion are broken, and the soul finds itself in the atmosphere which belongs to it.