In cases of natural death, where dissolution occurs as a consequence of the exhaustion of the bodily organs through age, man passes out of life without perceiving that he is doing so. It is like the flame of a lamp that goes out for want of aliment. The bonds which retained the soul being broken, it disengages itself from the body. It does not escape at once from the body, like a bird whose cage is suddenly opened. During life, a spirit is held to the body by his semi-material envelope, or perispirit .
Death is the destruction of the body only.
Observation shows us that the separation of the perispirit from the body is not suddenly completed at the moment of death. This delay does not imply the slightest persistence of vitality in the body, nor any possibility of Its return to life, but is simply the result of a certain affinity between the body and the spirit which affinity is always more or less tenacious in proportion to the preponderance of materiality in the affections of the spirit during his earthly life. The study of a great number of individuals after their death has shown that affinity which, in some cases, continues to exist between the soul and the body is sometimes extremely painful for it causes the spirit to perceive all the horror of the decomposition of the latter. This experience is exceptional, and peculiar to certain kinds of life and to certain kinds of death. It sometimes occurs in the case of those who have committed suicide.