The astral life, which the man has made for himself either miserable or comparatively joyous, corresponds to what Christians call purgatory; the lower mental life, which is always entirely happy, is what is called heaven.
Man makes for himself his own purgatory and heaven, and these are not planes, but states of consciousness.

Hell does not exist; it is only a figment of the theological imagination; but a man who lives foolishly may make for himself a very unpleasant and long enduring purgatory.

Neither purgatory nor heaven can ever be eternal, for a finite cause cannot produce an infinite result.

The variations in individual cases are so wide that to give actual figures is somewhat misleading.

If we take the average man of what is called the lower middle class, the typical specimen of which would be a small shopkeeper or shop-assistant, his average life in the astral world would be perhaps about forty years, and the life in the mental world about two hundred.