By Michael Tymn

There was a dramatic increase in the suicide rate during the Great Depression of the 1930s. If people who are losing their life savings in the current economic crisis are similarly inclined, they should reconsider. According to messages from the spirit world, they’ll just take their problems with them.

While there is a certain amount of conflicting information coming through mediums, the discerning student of mediumship comes to understand that spirits are not all-knowing, that some know little, if anything, more than they did when incarnate, that some are devious and intend to mislead, and that for the well-intentioned spirit, explaining celestial matters in terrestrial terms can be extremely difficult. Moreover, messages are often unintentionally ‘colored’ by the mind of the medium, or they can be misinterpreted by the medium.
However, suicide is one subject on which the spirit messages all seem to agree. While there may be some conflicting messages relative to suicide by terminally-ill people, the messages overwhelmingly condemn traditional suicide. They strongly suggest that the individual who hopes to escape from his or her problems here in the material world does not so.

Communicating through Gladys Osborne Leonard, a trance-voice medium, Claude Kelway-Bamber, a British pilot killed during World War I, told his mother that nothing can kill the soul. ‘You see, therefore, a suicide, far from escaping trouble, only goes from one form of misery to another; he cannot annihilate himself and pass to nothingness,’ Claude stated.

In her 1964 book, Post-Mortem Journal, Jane Sherwood, an automatic writing medium, related information coming to her from a spirit known as ‘Scott,’ a pseudonym for a spirit later identified as Colonel TE Lawrence, aka ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ Scott told of encountering one of his old friends in the afterlife, one who had killed himself. ‘He was in a kind of stupor and I was told that he might remain in this state for a long time and that nothing could be done about it,’ he penned through Sherwood’s hand. ‘We watched over him and were loath to leave him in the misty half-region where he was found… Until he regained consciousness there he had to remain; had we forcibly removed him his poor body would not have been able to stand the conditions of our plane… Now and again I went back to find him still in the same quiet coma, and seeing the state of his astral form I almost dreaded his awakening.’

Scott went on to say that such long-lasting comas are common with suicides. ‘It is really a merciful pause during which some of the damage to their emotional bodies is quietly made good.’ Scott and others attempted to help their old friend, but his condition was such that progress was slow.

‘I am told that there is a belief that suicides remain in coma until the time when they would normally have died,’ Scott added. ‘This is one of those propositions which are impossible of proof, since no one can say when their hour would have struck had they not anticipated it. It is a fact that this state of coma lasts for varying periods, but there is also a long period of unconsciousness in many who have come by violent deaths. A suicide differs from such a one because his emotional state is usually far worse and takes much longer to clear, but a long period of coma may supervene on death in either case… Eventually he must awaken and take on the task of fitting himself to enter his own appropriate sphere of being. This is where he can be and is helped. There is often a long convalescence before he can get free of the sin and suffering of his violent end.’

Lillian Bailey, a renowned medium, also received messages about suicide. One spirit communicated through her that the suicide will have to live through that which his physical body would have had to endure. ‘He will see the whole thing happening. He will be consciously living with the same problems, although there will be no one condemning him and there will be beauty all around him.’
The spirit went on to say that even though the suicide may feel he was justified in taking his own life, he is still a ‘gatecrasher’ and that things are not ready for him in the spirit world. ‘It is very difficult to tell you how wrong it is. He can’t go very far. He can only reach a certain ‘half-way’ stage His dear ones may not be able to get to him – something like Berlin’s Wall…’

Another spirit communicating through Bailey said: ‘It isn’t what you’ve got, or whether you are blind, deaf or dumb, it’s how you meet it. It isn’t so much what you do; it’s the motive you have for doing it.’

Red Cloud, the spirit guide of Estelle Roberts, one of England’s great mediums communicated that the person who commits suicide undergoes a premature birth into the spirit world. ‘He cannot immediately reach the plane of consciousness to which is evolution would entitle him had he fulfilled his allotted span on earth. Instead he remains suspended between the earth and the astral plane, which the first stage beyond earth. In this state he is deprived, for the time being, of the company of his loved ones in the spirit world, unable to cross the barrier raised by his premature birth. Only when he has advanced in his evolution to the required degree can he rejoin those he knew and loved.’
For more than 40 years, a spirit entity calling himself Silver Birch (believed to be a pseudonym for a collective spirit group) spoke through the entranced Maurice Barbanell. Frequently, members of the circle put questions to Silver Birch. When asked what the status of the suicide is in the spirit world, Silver Birch replied that he could not give an answer to applies to everyone. ‘It depends on the earthly life that has been lived,’ he said through Barbanell’s vocal cords. ‘It depends upon the soul’s progress; and, above all these things, it depends on the motive. The churches are wrong when they say that all suicide comes in the same category; it does not. While you have no right to terminate your earthly existence, there are undoubtedly in many cases, ameliorating factors, mitigating circumstances, to be considered.. No soul is better off because it has terminated its earthly existence. But it does not automatically follow that every suicide is consigned for aeons ot time into the darkest of the dark spheres.’

Many similar messages have come through other mediums. In their 2006 book, Suicide: What Really Happens in the Afterlife? Pamela Rae Heath, MD, PsyD and Jon Klimo, PhD, examine scores of messages from the spirit world about suicide, some from the spirits who took their own lives. A good part of their book deals with suicide bombers and what happens to them in the afterlife. If they truly believe they are doing God’s will and see themselves as martyrs to the cause, are they judged harshly, or do they judge themselves harshly? While there is next to nothing on this subject in the historical literature, Heath and Klimo went looking for answers among modern channelers or mediums. The fate of the suicide bomber will be the subject of the next blog entry on the subject.