Suicide Victim
On April 7, 1858, around seven in the evening, a well-dressed man of about fifty entered the large Samaritaine bathhouse in Paris and asked for a bath. After a long silence, an attendant opened the room and found a terrible sight: the stranger had cut his throat with a razor, and his blood had run into the bath water. No one knew who he was, so the body was taken to the Morgue. Six days later, his spirit was called at a meeting of the Paris Society.
The medium’s hand begins writing...
Mediums’ GuideWait a moment.
Mediums’ GuideHe is here.
AllanWhere are you now?
Unknown ManI do not know.
Unknown ManTell me where I am.
AllanYou are among people who study spirit communications.
AllanThey feel kindness for you.
Unknown ManTell me if I am alive...
Unknown ManI am suffocating in this coffin!
Although separated from the body, his soul was still deeply trapped in physical sensations and earthly ideas. He did not yet believe he was dead.
AllanWhat led you to come to us?
Unknown ManI felt I would be relieved by coming.
AllanWhat made you commit suicide?
Unknown ManAm I dead?
Unknown ManNot at all.
Unknown ManI am still in my body.
Unknown ManYou cannot imagine how much I suffer.
Unknown ManI am suffocating.
Unknown ManOh, if only some compassionate hand would finish killing me.
AllanWhy did you not leave anything to show who you were?
Unknown ManI was abandoned by everybody.
Unknown ManI fled from suffering only to find torture.
AllanDo you still have the same reason for wanting to remain unknown?
Unknown ManYes.
Unknown ManDo not press red-hot iron into a bleeding wound.
AllanWill you tell us your name, your age, your work, your address?
Unknown ManNo.
Unknown ManNothing.
AllanDid you have a family, a wife, children?
Unknown ManI was abandoned by all.
Unknown ManNo one loved me.
AllanWhat had you done that made no one love you?
Unknown ManHow many are like me?
Unknown ManA man may be abandoned in the middle of his family if no one cares for him.
AllanAt the moment you committed suicide, did you feel no hesitation?
Unknown ManI was thirsty for death.
Unknown ManI expected to find rest.
AllanWhy didn't the thought of the future hold you back?
Unknown ManI had stopped believing in a future.
Unknown ManI was without hope.
Unknown ManBelief in a future means hope.
AllanWhat thoughts passed through your mind at the moment when your life seemed to be ending?
Unknown ManI did not think.
Unknown ManI only felt.
Unknown ManBut my life is not over.
Unknown ManMy soul is still linked to my body.
Unknown ManI feel the worms that are devouring me.
AllanWhat feeling did you experience at the moment your death happened?
Unknown ManHas it happened?
AllanDid you suffer pain at the moment your life ended?
Unknown ManLess than afterward.
Unknown ManAt that moment, only the body suffered.
AllanSaint Louis, what does he mean when he says the moment of his death was less painful than afterward?
Mediums’ GuideThe spirit was throwing off a burden he was tired of carrying.
Mediums’ GuideSo the pain he felt in doing that was, at first, a kind of relief.
AllanDoes suicide always lead to a state like this?
Mediums’ GuideYes.
Mediums’ GuideThe one who kills himself remains linked to his body until the end of the time appointed for his life on Earth.
Mediums’ GuideNatural death frees the soul from the ties of life on Earth.
Mediums’ GuideSuicide leaves those ties in place.
AllanIs this state the same in accidental deaths, when life is shortened by causes outside the person's will?
Mediums’ GuideNo.
Mediums’ GuideSuch deaths are very different from suicide.
Mediums’ GuideThe spirit is responsible only for voluntary actions.
Kardec says this uncertainty about being dead is very common among the recently deceased, especially those strongly attached to material life. In this case, the punishment was especially terrible because the spirit still felt linked to the decaying body and sensed the worms devouring it. He adds that the condition is common among suicides, but it does not take exactly the same form in every case.
He also says this sensation of bodily decay is not limited to suicides. It can happen to others who lived mainly for the body and not for the soul. His conclusion is that no fault goes without consequence, but spiritual punishments are not all imposed in one fixed, identical way.