Szymel Slizgol

Szymel Slizgol was a poor Jewish beggar in Wilna who spent thirty years asking alms with the cry, Remember the poor, the widows, and the orphans. He collected large sums over time, but kept nothing for himself. He cared for the sick, paid for poor children's schooling, shared his food, made snuff at night to support his own needs, and gave the rest away. At his funeral, shops closed and much of the town followed his coffin.

The medium’s hand begins writing...

Szymel SlizgolVery happy, and having at last reached the height of my ambition through long effort, I have been among you since the beginning of this meeting. I thank you for thinking of the poor beggar, who will do his best to answer your questions.

AllanA letter from Wilna told us the main facts of your life. They moved us deeply, and that is why we wished to speak with you. We would like to know your condition in the spirit world and the reasons that determined the character of your last existence.

Szymel SlizgolFirst let me say a word about the surprise shown by some people, not here and not by Spiritists, but elsewhere, at the great public respect shown at the burial of the poor beggar. There is really nothing surprising in it. Kindness makes an impression even on the most materialistic minds, and that impression always comes out in signs of respect. Even those who do wrong in their own lives still pay homage to goodness when they see it in someone else.

Szymel SlizgolNow let me answer you, since your question comes not from curiosity, but for general instruction. I will respond as briefly as I can about the causes that determined my last life.

Szymel SlizgolSeveral centuries ago, I lived on Earth as a king, or at least as a sovereign prince. Within the limits of my power, which were small compared with the states of your day, I was absolute master of my subjects' lives and fortunes. I was their tyrant, or more exactly, their torturer and executioner.

Szymel SlizgolI was imperious, violent, greedy, and sensual. You can imagine the fate of the unhappy people under my rule. I used my power to oppress the weak. I taxed every kind of work, every trade, every passion, every sorrow, for the feeding of my vices.

Szymel SlizgolMy greed went so far that I even taxed begging. No starving miserable person could stretch out his cap to passersby without my taking most of what had been thrown into it. I did worse still. To keep the number of beggars from shrinking, I forbade those poor receivers of charity from giving any part of their small relief to their own friends or relatives. In a word, I was utterly pitiless toward suffering and misery.

Szymel SlizgolAt last I lost what you call life in horrible torments. My death terrified even those who, on a smaller scale, had copied my cruelties. I remained a wandering spirit for three centuries and a half.

Szymel SlizgolAfter that long time, I came to understand that life on Earth has a very different purpose from the one my coarse and blind senses had once pursued. Through prayers, acceptance, and regret, I obtained permission to take on a new life on Earth and endure the sufferings I had inflicted on others.

Szymel SlizgolI was also allowed to add, of my own will, still more moral and physical suffering to the life I chose. With the help of higher spirits, I remained faithful to my resolve to suffer patiently and devote myself to doing good.

Szymel SlizgolIn that way I was able to complete another life whose self-denial and charity redeemed the cruelty and injustice of my past. I was born in poverty. I lost my parents very early. I had to learn to fend for myself at an age when a child is usually thought unable to choose wisely.

Szymel SlizgolI lived alone, without love and without affection. In childhood I suffered the very brutalities I had once inflicted on others. You were told that I gave all the money I collected by begging to relieve my fellow creatures. That is true. And I may add, without vanity, that I often imposed severe privations on myself to increase the good I could do with what public charity placed in my hands.

Szymel SlizgolMy death was peaceful, because I knew I would receive the reward of my self-denial. And in truth I have been rewarded beyond my brightest hopes. I am very happy to tell you from my own experience that just as it is true that whoever exalts himself will be brought low, it is equally true that whoever humbles himself will be raised up.

AllanPlease tell us what your atonement in the spirit world was like, how long it lasted before repentance changed your fate, and what caused the change in your ideas.

Szymel SlizgolYou bring very painful images back to me. How horribly I suffered. But I do not complain. I only remember. You want to know what my atonement was. Then listen.

Szymel SlizgolSince I had been, as I told you, the torturer and executioner of everyone around me, I remained for a very long time attached by my spiritual body to my decaying corpse. I felt, until the corruption was complete, the gnawing of the worms that were devouring it.

Szymel SlizgolAnd when at last I was freed from the ties that bound me to the instrument of that punishment, I was subjected to another punishment still more terrible. After the physical suffering came moral suffering, and that lasted much longer.

Szymel SlizgolI was brought face to face with all the victims of my cruelty. Periodically, under a force stronger than my own, I found myself before all my evil deeds. I saw, both physically and morally, every sorrow and pain I had caused. Oh, my friends, how terrible it is to be always confronted with those one has wronged.

Szymel SlizgolThat is, in short, what I suffered for two hundred and fifty years, until God took pity on my grief and repentance, helped by the guides who supported me, and allowed me to undertake the life of atonement of which I have spoken.

AllanDid you have any special reason for choosing to be born a Jew in your last incarnation?

Szymel SlizgolI was advised to do so by my guides. Being a Jew added another humiliation to my life of atonement, because Jews, and especially Jewish beggars, are often despised.

AllanIn your last life, how old were you when you began carrying out the resolutions taken in the spirit world? How did the idea arise? And while you practiced such selfless charity, did you have any intuition of the deeper cause of that life?

Szymel SlizgolMy parents were intelligent, but very poor and very miserly. While still very young, I lost my mother's affection and caresses. My grief at her death was even deeper because my father, absorbed in making money, neglected me completely. My older brothers and sisters seemed not to notice my suffering at all.

Szymel SlizgolAnother Jew, moved more by self-interest than charity, took me into his house and taught me his trade. He more than repaid himself from my labor, which often went beyond my strength. After some time I freed myself from that yoke and worked for myself. But whether working or resting, the memory of my mother's caresses stayed with me everywhere. The older I grew, the more deeply that memory marked me, and the more painfully I felt the lack of her care and love.

Szymel SlizgolSoon I was the only one left of my family name. Death carried off the rest within a few months. Then the way I was to spend the rest of my life began to reveal itself to me.

Szymel SlizgolTwo of my brothers had left orphans. Moved by the memory of my own suffering, I wanted to save those poor little ones from a childhood like mine. Since my labor was not enough to support us all, I began to beg, not for myself, but for them. But I was not allowed the comfort of succeeding. The poor little ones left me forever.

Szymel SlizgolThen I understood clearly what they had lacked: a mother. So I resolved to ask public charity for unfortunate widows who, unable to support themselves and their children, wear themselves out with privation until they die, leaving their children abandoned to the same torments I myself had known.

Szymel SlizgolI was thirty years old, in full strength and health, when I began to beg for the widow and the orphan. The beginning was very painful. I had to endure many humiliating insults. But when people saw that I truly distributed to my poor dependents all that I collected in their name, and that I added to it the surplus of my own labor, I gained a kind of esteem that was not without comfort.

Szymel SlizgolI lived more than sixty years, and I never failed in the task I had taken on. Nor did any inner awareness ever lead me to suppose that a motive from a life before that one was driving me.

Szymel SlizgolOne day, however, before I began to beg, I heard these words: Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you. I was deeply struck by the moral reach of those words. And I often found myself completing them in my own mind: But do to others, on the contrary, whatever you would want them to do to you.

Szymel SlizgolSustained by the memory of my mother and of my lonely and neglected childhood, I continued along the road my conscience told me to follow.

Szymel SlizgolI will end this long communication by repeating, Thank you. I am not yet perfect. But knowing that evil leads only to evil, I will again devote myself to doing good, as I have already done, knowing that in this way I am preparing for myself a harvest of happiness.