The herald., 1896-06-18
TORTURES OF THE DAMNED
These and These Only Are Gained by
the Desperate Act
earthbound for the Unexplred Term Of His
Natural Life
Shakespeare Was a Great Occultist and Was
One Of the Many Great Souls Sent by
the Lodge of Adopts to Instruct
tho Race-CowardIy Act
ITO the Editor of The Herald:)

ITO the Editor OF The Herald:)
In recent issues of your paper have
appeared numerous letters upon the sub
iect of suicide, which present widely
different views. 1 herewith submit the
theosophical conception fthe act or
suicide and some of it's inevitable conse-
quences.
Ignorance is the cause of fear and
leads to the commission of the crime
of self-murder. The suicide as a rule,
believes that the destruction of his body
will blot out his consciousness or give
him entrance to another and better
world He is wrong in both cases.
The soul the thinker, that imperisha-
Bile, deific spark which resides in each
man, existed before the birth of the body
1t now occupies, and will continue to
exist after that body's destruction. The
thinker repeatedly incarnates upon this
earth in perishable human bodies for
purposes of evolution. The body is only
the instrument the soul uses. Conse-
quently the destruction of the former in
no sense involves the destruction of
the soul. But it's violent destruction, as
In the case of suicide, does impede the
souls evolution for time. That is the
crime of the suicide and its most disas-
trous effect is upon himself. The soul
of a suicide IS as much alive and con-
scious after the act as before-indeed
he has, by his violence, thrown himself
into a realm and state which, while diff
fernC in some respects from his former
condition, is yet similar. In the first
place, after the rude shock of the act
subsidies, he is fully concsious OF all his
former associations; indeed, he still ex-
lists in the same environment. for his
act has not removed him from this
world at all. But it has deprived him of
the power of making himself known and
acting with his former associates, though
he constantly strives to do so. He real
ICES, sooner or later, that he is still con-
scious of the persons and events he tried
to blot out, and that his interest in
them all is as intense as ever. He also
realizes his utter impotence to take
part in them. Instead of freeing him
self from this world and his former
associates, he finds himself still bound
to them by inseparable ties of his own
former binding.
If he suicided to escape consequences
of an evil action, he suffers unutterable
remorse because he now witnesses the
train of disasters following upon his
act, and his utter inability to undo it
or to prevent the effects from running
their course, to the misery of those most
dear to him.
If he suicided because of unrequited
love, he is conscious that the loved one
Is possessed by another, while he exists
in hell of jealousy, impressed with the
overpowering conviction that he is not
only impotent to blot 1t out of his mind
but is inspired with q consuming spirit
of hatred and revenge. The suicide thus,
by his own act, sets free all the quail
ties of his lower nature and becomes a
slave to them, while the higher quail
ties are for the time dormant.
If he Suicided because of the failure
to find employment sufficient to support
his family, he will realize the monstrous
evil he has committed in deserting them,
and perhaps see them suffer because OF
his own cowardly action. If his former
wife succumbs to disease because of
her attempts to perform his duty of sup
porting his family; If his sons, now de-
prived of their fathers care and guild
ance, become reprobates; if his daugh-
ters are forced by his cowardly deser-
tion from home and maybe into evil
ways, and disgrace themselves all
these things the suicide finds himself
all ulW Stlul, pul utlpleSS
witness of, and impotent to warn, or
prevent or save.
Truly, he suffers the tortures of the
damned, for he has by his own das-
tardly crime doomed himself to all
these tortures.
If he suicided at 25 and would have
lived, but for his own act, to be so years
of age, then for those remaining %
years he will be thus earthbound Slow
ly. but inevitably he realizes his utter
ly hopeless and helpless condition, and
then falls into state of abject and ter
rible despair, which language is entire
ly inadequate to describe.
You remember what the ghost of Ham.
let's father said: Hamlet, / am thy
fathers ghost, doomed for certain time
to walk the night, and for the day con-
fined to fast in fires (of remorse) till the
foul crimes done in my days Of nature
Oast earth life) are burnt and purged
away" Shakespeare was a great oc-
cultist, and one of the many great souls
sent by the lodge of adopts to instruct
the race. and he, in the words quoted
described one phase Of consciousness
experienced. by those whose lives are
violently cut off.
Suicide is a cowardly act. whatever
the cause that may be assigned to 1t
Furthermore, the act defeats it's own OBJ
ject. There is only one way to win, ana
tiidt 10 W uTdNely lace all obstacles q nj
overcome them by valorous action
Anyone can play the role of deserttr
Only the brave and courageous triumph
and become martyrs. An old adsge
runs: "He who fights and runs away
lives to fight another day" But itsthe
same old fight The suicide is dese'ter
He escapes only for time, at best. to
certainly reawaken to earth-life amidst
the same relative environment AMI as
sociations he fruitlessly sought b es-
cape from. The debt he was requi-ed to
dlscharge--his own duty to friend and
zoe alike-has not been liquidated by
lapse OF time and his flight. He fnds 1t
awaiting him on re-birth to earthlife,
only now it has become compounded
ana he is less fitted to settle it because of
ms FORMER attempt to avoid it. Nothing
pW our own ever comes to us, and all
tnat comes are opportunities If We would
put look at life rightly. Reinoarnation
the souls repeated earth lives, afford
those opportunities. and is tie process
OF character building and of evolution.
Here on this earth exist possibilities
which, in view Of the souls past prog