943- Where does the dissatisfaction with life come from, which takes hold of some individuals without any plausible reason?
“It is the effect of idleness, lack of faith, and usually, satiety. For those who employ their faculties with a useful purpose and according to their natural aptitudes, labor has nothing barren about it and life flows by more quickly. They bear life’s tribulations with patience and resignation because they look forward to the more solid and lasting happiness awaiting them.”
944- Do people have the right to take their own life?
“No! Only God has that right. Those who intentionally commit suicide commit a transgression against this law.”
– Is suicide always intentional?
“Insane individuals who kill themselves do not know what they are doing.”
945- What is to be thought of those who commit suicide because they are dissatisfied with life?
“Folly! Why didn’t they work? Life would not have seemed so heavy to them.”
946- What about those who resort to suicide in order to escape from the troubles and disappointments of this world?
“Poor spirits, who do not have the courage to bear the misfortunes of life! God helps those who suffer but not those who have neither strength nor courage. The tribulations of life are meant as trials or expiations. Happy are they who bear them without complaining, for they shall be rewarded! But woe to those who in their impiety hope to find salvation in chance! Chance or luck – to borrow their own language – may in fact favor them for a moment, but only to make them later and more cruelly feel the emptiness of their words.”
– Won’t those who have driven an unhappy person to this act of despair suffer the consequences of their action?
“Unfortunate beings! They will have to answer for it as for a murder.”
947- Can those who have become disheartened with necessity and who allow themselves to die of despair be considered as having committed suicide?
“It is suicide, but those who have caused it, or those who could have prevented it, are guiltier than those for whom clemency awaits. However, do not think they will be entirely absolved if they lacked firmness and perseverance, or failed to make the best use of their intelligence to get themselves out of their difficulties. They will be even more unfortunate if their despair was the child of pride; i.e., if they were one of those whose pride paralyzes their intelligence, who would be ashamed at having to earn their living by manual labor, and who would prefer to die of starvation rather than descend from what they call their social position! Isn’t there a hundred times more greatness and dignity in struggling against adversity, in braving the criticism of a futile and selfish society, which only shows goodwill toward those who lack nothing, and which turns its back on you in your time of need? To throw away one’s life because of the considerations of such a society is a stupid thing since society will not care about it in the least.”
948- Is suicide committed in order to escape the shame of an evil act as reprehensible as suicide committed out of despair?
“Suicide does not erase the wrong. On the contrary, it is a second wrong added to the first. Those who have the courage to do evil should have the courage to bear the consequences. God is the one who judges. Moreover, depending on the cause, God can at times lessen its punishment.”
949- Is suicide excusable when committed in order to avoid bringing shame on one’s children or family?
“Those who act under this belief do no good at all; however, they think they do, and God will take their intention into account, for their suicide will be a self imposed expiation. The wrong is mitigated by their intention, but it is a wrong nonetheless. Besides, if you would get rid of your social prejudices and abuses, you would not have any more suicides.”
Those who take their own life in order to escape the shame of an evil act prove that they attach more value to the estimation of others than to that of God, because they will return to the spirit life burdened with their iniquities and will have deprived themselves of the means of atoning for them during life. God is often less unforgiving than people. God pardons those who sincerely repent and takes into account our efforts at reparation; however, suicide does not repair anything.
950- What is to be thought of those who take their own life in the hope of arriving sooner at a better life?
“Another folly! Let them do good and they will be sure to reach such a state. Their suicide will only delay their entrance into a better world and they themselves will ask to come back in order to complete the life that they cut short through a wrong-headed idea. A wrong, no matter what it may be, never opens the sanctuary of the elect to anyone.”
951- Isn’t the sacrifice of one’s life sometimes meritorious when it is made in order to save the lives of others or to be useful to one’s neighbor?
“In accordance with such intention, it is sublime, and such a sacrifice of life is therefore not a suicide. However, God opposes a meaningless sacrifice and cannot look upon it with pleasure if it is tarnished by pride. A sacrifice is not meritorious unless it is selfless. Unfortunately, those who make such a sacrifice sometimes have ulterior motives, and this decreases its value in God’s sight.”
Every sacrifice made at the cost of our own happiness is a supremely meritorious act in God’s sight, for it is the practice of the law of charity. Additionally, since life is the earthly asset that we value the most, those who renounce it for the good of their neighbor do not commit a crime: they perform a sacrifice. Nonetheless, before doing so, they should consider whether their life might not be more useful than their death.
952- Is it considered suicide for those who die as victims of the abuse of their own passions, which they knew would hasten their end, but which they could no longer resist because habit turned their passions into true physical needs?
“It is a moral suicide. Don’t you see that they are doubly guilty in such a case? They lack courage and yield to brutishness. Moreover, they forget about God.”
– Are they more or less guilty than those who shorten their life out of despair?
“They are guiltier because they had time to reason about their suicide. For those who commit suicide on the spur of the moment, there is sometimes a kind of delirium that approaches insanity. The former will be punished much more than the latter because punishments are always in proportion to the awareness of one’s wrong-doing.”
953- When individuals see an inevitable and terrible death in front of them, is it wrong to shorten their suffering by a few moments through intentional death?
“It is always wrong not to wait for the term set by God. Besides, how can they tell with certainty whether their time has indeed come – despite appearances – or whether they might receive some unexpected help at the last moment?”
– We admit that suicide is reprehensible under ordinary circumstances, but we are supposing a case in which death is inevitable, and in which life is only shortened by a few instants.
“Nevertheless, it displays a lack of resignation and of submission to the will of the Creator.”
– What in this case are the consequences of such action?
“As always, an expiation in proportion to the seriousness of the wrong, according to the circumstances.”
954- Is an imprudent act that compromises life without necessity reprehensible?
“There is no culpability when there is no positive intention or consciousness of doing harm.”
955- Are the women who in some countries intentionally burn themselves to death over the body of their husband to be considered as having committed suicide, and must they suffer the consequences of it?
“They obey a prejudice, and usually do it more out of coercion than of their own will. They believe they are fulfilling a duty, and this is not what characterizes suicide. Their excuse is their ignorance and their lack of moral development. Such barbarous and stupid customs will disappear with civilization.”
956- Do those who cannot bear the loss of loved ones and kill themselves in the hope of rejoining them accomplish their objective?
“The result for them is much different than what they hoped for. Instead of being reunited with the objects of their affection, they keep themselves away from them even longer because God cannot reward an act of cowardice, an insult which demonstrates distrust in divine providence. They will pay for that moment of insanity with afflictions even greater than those they wished to shorten, and they will not have the compensation they had hoped for.” (See nos. 934 ff.)
957- In general, what are the consequences of suicide on the state of the spirit?
“The consequences of suicide vary widely. There are no set penalties and in all cases they are always relative to the causes that produced them. One consequence, from which those who commit suicide cannot escape, however, is disappointment. Besides, the fate is not the same for all – it depends on circumstances. Some expiate their wrong at once, whereas others do so in a new life that will be worse than the one whose course they have interrupted.”
Observation has in fact confirmed that the consequences of suicide are not always the same. However, there are some that are a common thread to all cases of violent death and the aftermath of the sudden interruption of life. Foremost among them is the persistence of the link that ties the spirit to the body and which is almost always at its full strength when prematurely ruptured – unlike natural death wherein this link weakens gradually and is often undone before life is completely extinguished. The consequences of these unfortunate events are the prolongation of spiritual confusion followed by the illusion which, for a longer or shorter period, causes the spirit to believe it is still among the living. (See nos. 155, 165)
In some suicides, the affinity that persists between the spirit and the body produces a sort of repercussion of the state of the body on the spirit, who is thus compelled to witness the effects of decomposition, experiencing a sensation full of anguish and horror. This state can continue as long as the life which was interrupted ought to have lasted. This consequence is not the general rule. However, in no case are those who committed suicide freed from the consequences of their lack of courage; sooner or later, they will expiate this wrong in one way or another. Thus, certain spirits who had been very unhappy on earth have stated that they had committed suicide in their preceding existence, and that they had voluntarily submitted to new trials in order to try to bear them with more resignation. For some it comes in the form of a bond to matter, from which they vainly seek to free themselves in order to go to happier worlds, but whose access is denied to them. For the majority, it is regret for having done something needless from which they have reaped only disappointment.
Religion, morality and philosophy condemn suicide as being contrary to the law of nature. All tell us, in principle, that we have no right to intentionally shorten our own life. But why don’t we have that right? Why aren’t we free to put an end to our own sufferings?
It is up to the Spiritist Doctrine to address these questions and to show through the actual examples of those who have succumbed to it that suicide is not only a wrong that violates moral law (a consideration of little importance to some individuals), but a reckless act that will bring no benefit – in fact, the result will be quite the contrary. It is not according to some theory that Spiritism teaches us this. Spiritism has set actual examples right in front of us.
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