The San Francisco call., 1896-08-10
SUICIDE UNJUSTIF|ABl {,
DR.. Jerome A. Anderson's Lee
ture at Golden Gate
Hall.
It Is Violation of Nature, and
Insanity Is the Only Possible
Excuse.

The Theosophists had packed house
at the last regular meeting at Golden Gate
Hall, when DR.. Jerome A. Anderson,
president of the San Francisco Branch of
| the Theosophlcal Society in America,
lectured on Suicide
DR.. Anderson took the negative side of
the question recently discussed at such
great length in The SUNDAY CALL, as
Suicide Justifable Under Any Condi-
| tions?'
| DR.. Anderson said:
'The prevalence of suicide among West
ern people is due entirely to wrong con-
ceptions of life. These in their turn are
| the result of materialistic teachings of
both religion and philosophy. The pure
materialist houts the idea that, although
in the midst of eternity, he will ever have
other than a feeting glimpse of sentient
| life. For him the tragedy of existence
consists of one act and then the curtain is
! rung down forever.
$50 long as religion and materialistic
| philosophy unite in declaring that one
| life ends the relations of the soul with
matter for all eternity, so long Will they
| be unable to recognize the wonderful, the
awful continuity of life, and that it can
| not be laid aside at the whim or will of
| ignorant man.
| This is the avenue by which we must
approach the study of suicide, as well as
| all other problems of human existence
that man is one with nature. 1t is at
once evident that he is undergoing the
| evolution apparent IN ali nature, only
upon relatively higher plane of baing.
| His soul may be said to represent unit of
| consciousness, just as stable, as incapable
| of being destroyed as the correspond ding
| 1,Taff Of tfar fl,o l. &c
| ing through its evolutionary cycle of
necessity, adding accretions of wisdom as
! the result OF its conscious experience, in a
| manner analogous to that by which the
atom grows by svnthesizing other matter.
Looking at life from this larger view
point, we must believe that man is a por-
ton of his planet, and that he will remain
and evolve upon it until it can no longer
afford him new, helpful, conscious expert
| ences. And this is the theory to which q
very large majority of the people of the
| earth subscribe under the name of reincar-
nation. Reincarnation is the very process
| of human evolution.
Mature has intended n an to rest be-
| tween each conscious struggle with this
lower matter, and has provided the oppor-
tunity in her law of cycles, which governs
| all existence, whether OF man or sun.
"Woe to all men who violate any of her
! immutable laws; but woe of woes to him
| VINO lifts his frenzled hand to cut short
the time she has appointed him for learn
| ing his lessons of wisdom through expert
| ence. For nature disowns him; he has no
| place in her eternal harmonies-no place
he is neither dead nor alive. Torn vio-
lently out of his body by the most selfish
| of acts he must remain in a helpless
nightmarelike condition until the period
of that which would have been his normal
life has expired, when ne can once more
| enter the common stream of evolution,
but under the most unhappy conditions.
| The suicide is a rebel against the Infinite;
one who is trying to evade the conse-
/ quences of his own acts.
"He cannot succeed. Torn out of the
body with the thought of suicide domina-
ting his whole being, it will remain the
dominating thought during years of un-
told agony. He will repeat in his imagin-
| alton all the grewsome details of his sui
eide, year after year, trying in vain to
escape from himself. No power in heaven
nor upon earth can prevent this, for he has
appealed to the infinite law of cause and
| effect and he must abide its action.
Therefore, there Is no Circumstance or
set of circumstances which can Justify
suicide. Even from a purely selfish point
OF view he who commits the act but adds
materially to his dreadful sufferings Moth
ing but the utter irresponsibility of COM
plete insanity will bar him from the con-
| sequences"