Statistics of suicideIt was published in the Siècle … May 1862:
“We find this curious statistics of suicide in the Comédie sociale ou dix-neuvième siècle by Mr.
B. Gastineau, published by Dentu Edition:
It is estimated that since the beginning of the century the number of suicides in France is no less than 300,000. That estimate, however, is likely more as complete data is only available starting in 1836. In the period of seventeen years from 1836 to 1852 there were 52,126 suicides or an average 3,066 per year. In 1858 there were 3,803 suicides (853 women and 3050 men). And finally and according to the latest statistics found during 1859 there were 3,899 people who committed suicide (3,057 men and 842 women).
Attesting that the number of cases of suicide grows every year, Mr. Gastineau eloquently deplores this perceived monomania which seems to have taken over the human race.”
There you have a short eulogy for the unfortunate ones who commit suicide.
The issue, however, seems to be much more serious to us and deserves a careful examination. Given the situation described it seems that suicide is no longer an isolated and accidental fact. In fairness it may well be classified as a social disease, a true calamity. An ailment that takes the lives of three to four thousand people per year in one country and that follows a growing trend is not due to chance. It must have some rational cause, similar to when one sees a large number of people dying from the same disease. A situation like this draws the attention of science and authorities alike.
In such cases the attention is drawn to the kind of death and the means employed while the essential element is neglected, the only one reason that could give us a hint of the remedy: the root cause reason for each case of suicide. In this way we can find the fundamental cause. With the exception of well-characterized circumstances, it seems simpler and more convenient to attribute them all to the class of monomaniacs.
There are undoubtedly cases of suicide caused by monomania, carried out beyond the boundaries of reason like those that follow madness, elevated fevers and intoxication. In such cases the cause is purely physiological. Besides those, however, there is the much larger number of the voluntary suicides, premeditated and total awareness.
Certain people believe that the one who commits suicide is never in control of their own mental faculties. It is a mistake that we shared in the past but that has proven wrong after careful observation. In fact it is very natural to believe that the instinct of preservation is part of nature; that the voluntary destruction of oneself is not natural. That is a why that we often see instinct take over the desire to die at the very last moment and from this we conclude that in order to carry out such an act one must have lost their mind.
There is no doubt that many people who commit suicide are taken by a kind of vertigo at that moment and succumb at the first moment of exaltation. Some wake up and cling back to life excited by the instinct of preservation at the very last moment but it is also evident that many kill themselves cold-bloodedly and with remorse. A proof of that is in the plan and in the calculated order of actions that are not symptoms of madness.
We shall mention in-passing a characteristic trait of suicide: these actions are exceedingly rare and in completely isolated and uninhabited places. A person lost at sea or in the desert may die of deprivation but will not commit suicide even when there is no hope of finding help. Someone, however, who voluntarily wants to leave this life behind finds a lonely spot in order not to be seen but the act is done, preferably in populous centers of cities where there is at a least a chance of having the body found. That person may jump from the top of a downtown monument but not from the top of a cliff where there would be no trace left; another one would hang himself at the “Bois de Boulogne” but not in a forest where he would never be found.
The one who commits suicide does not wish to be stopped but does wish that sooner or later that the suicide is known. It seems that such a memory from people keeps them somehow attached to the world that they wanted to leave and that is so much true that the idea of the absolute void has something of more terrifying than death itself. Here is a curious example that supports this theory:
Around 1815 a wealthy Englishman visited the Rhine Falls. He became so much impressed that he returned to England, organized his businesses and months later he came back to throw himself in the voracious precipice. It is unquestionably an original act but we doubt very much that he would do the same at Niagara Falls so that nobody would ever know. A singular trait of character caused the action but the thought that people would talk about him was determinant in the choice of place and time. Had his body been never found at least the memory of him would not vanish!
In the absence of official statistics that might indicate the exact proportions of the several modes of suicide there is no doubt that the majority of cases are determined by the setbacks of fate, deceptions, and sorrows of all sorts. In such cases suicide is not an act of madness but of desperation.
Side by side with those motives that could be called serious, there are some that are evidently futile not to mention the undefined displeasure of life amidst its pleasure, like the one that we just mentioned. What is certain is the fact that all of those who commit suicide, with or without reason, get to such an extreme because they are not content.
There is no doubt that nobody can fix that first cause but it is necessary to deplore the easiness with which, for some time now, people succumb to such a fatal temptation. That is above all and from our point of view what has to be addressed and that is perfectly remediable.
People frequently ask if there is courage or cowardliness in suicide. There is unquestionably cowardliness before the trials of life but there is also courage to face the pains and anguishes of death. These two points, at it seems, comprise the whole issue of suicide.
However pungent the crises of death people fight back, face and withstand them when excited by the example. That is the case of the recruit, for example, that would step back before the line of fire but that becomes excited by seeing others move on and without fear. The same happens to the one who commits suicide. The vision of those who freed themselves by such a means from the displeasures and troubles of life lead them to believe that such a moment passes rapidly. Those who could have been stopped by the fear of pain tell themselves that if so many do it, they can do the same; that it is better to suffer for a few moments than do so for years. That is the only contagious aspect of suicide.
The infection is not in the fluids or in the attractions but in the example that familiarizes people with the idea of death and with the employment of means to carry that out. That is so much true that once there is a suicide of a given kind it is not rare to have it followed by others of the same type. The story of the famous lookout post where fourteen soldiers committed suicide within a short time interval has no other cause. The means was there, in the open. It seemed convenient and since they had the inclination of terminating their lives, they did it. The simple vision could have accelerated the idea. When Napoleon was told about that he had the fatal post burned down. The means was no longer there. The problem stopped.
The publicity given to suicide has the effect of the lookout post. It excites, encourages and familiarizes people with the idea and even provokes it. From that point of view we consider the details found in the press as one of the causes that elicits suicide: they give the courage of death.
The same happens to those crimes that excite public curiosity. They produce a truly moral infection. They have never stopped a single criminal. On the contrary, they have created more than one.
Let us now examine suicide from another point of view. We said that regardless of the particular motives they always have displeasure as one cause. Now, someone who is certain of not been unhappy but only for one day and to be better on the following days becomes patient. Such a person only gets desperate if there is no limit to the sufferings. What is then a human life before eternity if not just a single day? But the one who does not believe in eternity; who believes that everything finishes with death, whenever oppressed by sorrow and misery, that person can only see an end to all that with death. Since there is no other expectation it seems extremely natural to abbreviate sufferings through suicide.
Disbelief, the simple doubt about the future, the materialistic ideas, these are in a word the greatest drivers of suicide. They give into moral cowardliness.
When we see scientists using the authority of their knowledge striving to prove to their audiences or readers that there is nothing to be expected after death, isn’t that a guide to the conclusion that when unhappy there is nothing better to do than to kill oneself?
What could they say to convince people otherwise? Which compensations could they offer? Which hope could they give? Nothing beyond the nothingness. From that we must conclude that if the nothingness is a heroic remedy, the only perspective, than it is better to fall immediately than later and thus suffering for a shorter time.
The propagation of materialistic ideas is then the poison that inoculates in many people the idea of suicide and those who become their apostles carry a terrible responsibility.
It is possible that some will dispute this by saying that not every person that commits suicide is materialistic since there are people who kill themselves with the objective of getting to heavens earlier and others to reunite with the loved ones sooner. It is true but that is unquestionably the lower number and something that would be easy to demonstrate if there would be serious statistics of the causes of suicide.
Nevertheless people who yield to such a thought and believe in a future life evidently have a false idea of that life and the way they are presented with that life is not in general much adequate to give them a more accurate idea.
Spiritism not only confirms the idea of a future life but also demonstrates it through the most illustrative facts that can be presented: the testimonies of those who live there. It does even more: Spiritism shows that life to us with such rational and logical colors that faith is then supported by reason. Since doubt is no longer accepted life then changes completely. Its importance diminishes in proportion to the acquired certainty of a more prosperous future. To the believer life extends indefinitely beyond the grave, hence the patience and resignation that preclude the idea of suicide; hence the moral courage, in a word.
From that point of view Spiritism leads to another very positive result and perhaps to an even more determining factor. Religion well says that suicide is a mortal sin that meets punishment. How come? In the eternal flames that nobody believes. Spiritism shows us those who committed suicide, face-to-face, coming to us to report their unfortunate condition but with the difference that the punishments vary according to the attenuating or aggravating circumstances, more in agreement with a divine justice. That instead of being uniform, the punishments naturally follow the provoking causes and one must see there the sovereign justice impartially distributed.
Among those who commit suicide there are some whose suffering, although momentary rather than eternal, is not less terrifying so that whoever may entertain the idea of leaving Earth earlier than God’s wishes is led to think again. The Spiritist then has several points that counterbalance the idea of suicide: the certainty of a future life in which the believer knows that the greater the misery and resignation on Earth the more prosperous such life will be; the certainty that by abbreviating life the person obtains an absolutely opposite result than the one that is expected; that the person will not be able to meet the loved ones again in the other world. It follows that suicide is totally against anyone’s own interests.
Hence the considerable number of suicides avoided by Spiritism from which one can conclude that when everybody becomes Spiritist there will no longer be voluntary suicides and that is going to happen sooner rather than later. Comparing the Spiritist doctrine to materialism and only from the point of view of suicide it can be noticed that the logic of the latter leads to suicide whereas the logic of the former deviates from that and that is confirmed by experience.
They will ask if by the same means one can destroy hypochondria, the cause of so many unprovoked suicides, of this unbreakable displeasure of life that nothing seems to justify. Such cause is eminently physiological whereas the others are of psychological nature. Since it is physiological it is then in the scope of science and we could put it to rest and say: we take care of matters related to us. Why do not you then heal the other one considering that it is your business? Nevertheless we have no problem in giving a positive response to this question. Certain organic ailments are evidently fed and even generated by psychological dispositions. The disgust of life, most of the time, is the result of satiation. A person that has experienced everything and who sees nothing else beyond is in a similar situation of a drunk that has emptied the whole bottle and since there is nothing left he breaks it. The abuse and excesses of all kinds forcibly lead to a disturbance and weakening of vital functions. From there a number of diseases of unknown sources believed to be the cause when in reality are the consequences. It is also followed by monotony and lack of courage. What is it that a hypochondriac person misses to fight the melancholic ideas? An objective in life, a driver towards action. Which objective one can have when believing in nothing?
The Spiritist does more than just believing in the future. One knows, and not through the eyes of faith but by the examples that one has before oneself, that the inescapable future life is happy or unhappy according to the employment given to the corporeal life and that happiness is proportional to the good that has been done. It is then natural that such a person wishes to be as happy as possible in that life given the certainty of life after death and a much longer life when compared to that on Earth. There is also the certainty, on another hand, that one will be unhappy there if no good is done here or even if the person is not bad as such but does nothing instead. One feels the need to get busy, the best preservative against hypochondria. The certainty about the future gives an objective. Doubt gives nothing. One is taken by boredom and terminates life since there is nothing else to look for.
Allow me a perhaps trivial comparison but one that serves as analogy. A man spent an hour at the theatre. By thinking that the play was over he stands up and leaves. However, if he knew that something even better and of longer duration will be presented he would have stayed, even if seating in the worst place. Fatigue will be overcome by the wait of something better.
The same causes that lead to suicide also lead to madness. The remedy to one is the remedy to the other, as demonstrated. Unfortunately, while medicine only takes into account the material side it will be deprived from the enlightenment that the spiritual element carries and that plays a very active role in a large number of ailments.
Spiritism besides reveals the primary cause of suicide and that could only be done by Spiritism. The troubles of life are at the same time atonements of faults from the past and trials to the future. It is the spirit that chooses them in order to advance but it may happen that during the execution of the task one may find too heavy a burden and give up before the conclusion. That is when one reaches out to suicide and finds delay instead of advancement.
There is also the case where a spirit committed suicide in a preceding incarnation and as atonement meets the trying fight against the tendency of suicide. If the spirit succeeds there will be progress. If the spirit fails there will be the need to restart a new life perhaps more difficult than the previous one and so on, fighting until victory is achieved for any reward in the next life is the result of victory and victory means fight.
Hence, given the certainty that the Spiritist has about that state of things he or she acquires a will power that no other philosophy can give.
AK
