Under the title above, we came across an excellent book authored by Alirio Cerqueira Filho. In it, there is an analysis of another classic of the Spiritist literature entitled “Memories of a Suicide”, a narrative by the Spirit of Camilo Castelo Branco and a psychographics by Yvonne A. Pereira.

Camilo Castelo Branco, a Portuguese literate, when stricken by irreversible blindness, commits suicide and spends a long time, until his vital fluid runs out, in the valley of the suicides. Later, in conditions of an already rescued Spirit, he obtains permission from the Greater Spirituality to, through the mechanisms of mediumship, tell about the intense suffering that accompanied him after the insane act.

Right at the beginning of the first mentioned work, we find appalling data, provided by the World Health Organization, on the number of suicides that occur in the world, as well as the reasons and the disastrous consequences that result from them.

For the record, so that we can have an exact notion of the seriousness of the situation, this organization says that in the year 2000 one million people committed suicide; and suicide is responsible for nearly half of all violent deaths in the world; every 30 seconds a person commits suicide; it is the third cause of death between the ages of 15 and 35 years old, it is among the 10 most frequent causes of death at all ages; in most European countries, the annual number of suicides exceeds that of victims of traffic accidents and, among others that we will not name, the estimates made indicate that in 2021 the victims could reach 1.5 million people per year . Terrifying, isn't it?

It is important to point out that regarding this estimate Kardec, in an article published in the Spiritist Magazine in 1866, stated that suicides would multiply in a proportion never seen before, even among children. The subject was discussed in an analysis made of this transition period that we are already facing in our orb, when, in addition to various catastrophes affecting the planet's geography, substantial changes in the field of ideas would occur.

Among the various causes that lead to suicide, we could mention: psychotic episodes, schizophrenia, depression, incurable diseases such as cancer, AIDS and degenerative diseases, boredom in the face of a materialistic conception of life, and people who kill themselves to join someone dear already disincarnated, among others.

Whatever the cause, it is important to think that suicide is a vain attempt to seek death, because death does not exist. Practicing suicide will not kill life itself. It will only destroy the material body. The spiritual body, which we Spiritists call the perispiritual body, and the immortal soul, will remain alive in the other dimension.

We are all triune beings, beings made up of body, perispirit and soul. The soul is the Divine Essence, the thinking Being, which is surrounded by the perispirit which is semi-material, matter in a quintessential state and the physical body. Joining the soul to the perispirit there are energetic ties and, uniting the perispirit to the body, there are other energetic ties.

For the subject to be well understood, it is important that we bring some questions asked by Kardec to the Superior Spirits with their respective answers and some comments on the consequences of suicide.

Let us see:

Question 957 from The Book of Spirits: - “What in general, in relation to the state of the Spirit, are the consequences of suicide? The consequences of suicide are very different. There are no fixed penalties and, in all cases, they always correspond to the causes that produced it. There is, however, one consequence that the suicidal person cannot escape: disappointment. But luck is not the same for everyone; it depends on the circumstances. Some atone for the fault immediately, others in a new existence, which will be worse than the one they interrupted.”

We can infer from these words that each case is a case. There are always in suicide issues the so called mitigating and aggravating in relation to the act. And Kardec comments: “Observation shows, in fact, that the effects of suicide are not identical. There are some, however, common to all cases of violent death and that are the consequence of the sudden interruption of life. There is, first, the more prolonged and tenacious persistence of the bond that unites the Spirit and the body, since this bond is almost always in the fullness of its strength when it is broken, whereas, in the case of natural death, it gradually weakens and many times it falls apart before life is completely extinguished.”

And he goes on: "The consequences of this state of affairs are the projection of the Spiritual disturbance, as well as the illusion that, for a more or less long period, makes the Spirit believe that it is still among the living."

Kardec complements his comments saying: “Religion, morals and all philosophies condemn suicide as something contrary to the law of Nature. Everyone tells us, in principle, that no one has the right to voluntarily shorten life. But why don't we have that right? Why is one not free to end one's sufferings? It was reserved for Spiritism to demonstrate, through the example of those who succumbed, that suicide is not only a fault for infringing a moral law - little consideration for some individuals -, but also a stupid act, since nothing is gained from it – but a lot on the contrary. It is not theory that teaches us this, but the very facts that Spiritism puts before our eyes.”

For those who tend to disdain the revelations brought by the Doctrine of the Spirits, we pass on some information from reputable scientists, such as Dr. Ian Currie, Canadian sociologist who, in his book “You cannot die” or, in literal translation, “You cannot die to die”, says few people know that death, the oldest, most mysterious and unavoidable adversary of man, has been systematically studied during the last hundred years by scientists who have researched it in various areas. Fewer still are aware that the result of this effort is a host of fascinating discoveries that have led to four conclusions: humans survive physical death; they continue to exist after death at different levels of consciousness and creativity, in a sphere that incarnated beings normally cannot perceive; they periodically leave these spheres to assume a new body and that successive reincarnations do not happen by chance, but obey a fascinating causal law.

As there is no space to detail the works carried out by other scholars on the existence and continuation of life, I point out here some names that can be searched for reading, which only confirm everything that the Spiritist Doctrine has revealed to us.

They are, without exhausting the list: Dr. Larry Dossey (USA); Dr. Raymond A. Moody Jr. (USA); Dr. Kenneth Ring (USA); Brian Weiss (USA); Dr. Ian Stevenson (Psychiatrist at University of Virginia – USA); Dr. Roger Woolger (England); Patrick Drouout (France); Hans Tem Dan (Netherlands); Edith Fiore (USA), among others.

Finally, the quest for knowledge is the key to freeing ourselves from ignorance.

Investigating, stripped of prejudice, where we came from and where we are going to, is an essential point for us to improve each day.

Life never ends. We move to another plane.

Our Spirit is immortal, so seeking death as a measure to get rid of our problems will only slow our progress, remembering that we are, always we, the artisans of our destiny.