Suicide by obsession
The Droit reads:
“Mr. Jean-Baptiste Sadoux, manufacturer of canoes in Joinville-Le-Pont, saw yesterday a young man wandering around on a bridge for some time, and later climbed on the parapet and rushed into the Marne. He immediately went to his aid and brought him back after seven minutes. But the asphyxiation was already complete, and all the attempts made to revive the unfortunate man were unsuccessful.
A letter found on him allowed to identify him as Mr. Paul D…, aged twenty-two, living at Sedaine Street, in Paris. The letter, addressed by the suicide man to his father, was extremely touching. He begged for his forgiveness for abandoning him and told him that for two years he had been dominated by a terrible idea, by an irresistible desire to destroy himself. He seemed to hear, he added, a voice beyond life calling on him relentlessly, and despite his best efforts, he could not help but go towards it. In the pocket of his jacket, they also found a new rope with a noose. After the forensic examination, the body was returned to the family."
The obsession is very evident here, and what is not less so is that Spiritism is completely foreign to that, a further proof that this evil is not inherent to the belief. But if Spiritism has nothing to do with the fact, it alone can give its explanation. Here is the instruction given on this subject by one of our usual Spirits, and from which it emerges that, despite the enticement to which this young man yielded for his misfortune, he did not succumb to fate; he had his free-will, and with a stronger will, he could have resisted. If he were a Spiritist, he would have understood that the voice that called him could only be that of an evil Spirit, and the terrible consequences of a moment of weakness.
Paris, Group Desliens, December 20th, 1868 – medium Mr. Nivard
“The voice said: Come! Come! But the voice of the tempter would have been ineffective if I had not felt the direct action of the Spirit. The poor suicide man was called, and he was pushed. Why? His past was the cause of the painful situation he found himself in; he valued life and dreaded death; but, in this incessant call that he heard, had he found, shall I say, the strength? No. He drew on the weakness that lost him. He overcame his fears, because in the end he expected to find rest on the other side of life that this side had denied him. He was deceived: no rest had come. Darkness surrounds him, his conscience reproaches him for his act of weakness, and the Spirit that has drawn him laughs around him, constantly throwing persiflage at him. The blind man does not see him, but he hears the voice repeating to him: Come! come! And then laughs at his tortures.
The cause of this case of obsession is in the past, as I have just said; the obsessing Spirit himself has been driven to suicide by the one he has just knocked down into the abyss. She was his wife in the previous existence, and she had suffered greatly from her husband's debauchery and brutality. Too weak to accept with courage and resignation the situation that was presented to her, she sought refuge for her sufferings in death. She has since avenged herself and you know how. But nevertheless, the act of this unfortunate man was not fatal; he had accepted the risks of temptation; it was necessary for his advancement, for it was the only way to remove the stain that had soiled his previous existence. He had accepted the risks with the hope of being stronger, but he was wrong: he failed. He will do it again later; will he endure? It will depend on him.
Pray to God for him, to give him the calm and resignation that he so badly needs, the courage and the strength so that he does not fail in the tests that he will have to withstand later.
Louis Nivard.”
