In the book, Memoirs of a Suicide, a group of recovering suicides are being brought forward in the lecture area to travel through their past lives to determine how they arrived at the life where they committed suicide. Each person, one by one, is seated in a contraption at the front of the class. There is a type of screen, but it is more like a hologram, where the memories of the person in the chair become real to the entire audience.

The first person to experience the interrogation is Amadeu Ferrari. He had cancer, and to pay for his treatments he embezzled money from the bank where he worked. His cancer was attacking his tongue and throat.His previous life appeared on the screen;

“Amadeu appeared to us, depicted by his own mind, in the year 1840 as a trafficker of black slaves from Angola to Brazil… He was from Portugal, which explained our affinity for him. By means of a series of voyages, he enriched himself with the abominable trade, not sparing any efforts in his vile ambition of returning to Portugal as a millionaire. He inflicted indescribable torment on the wretches as he rounded them up in their free homeland to make slaves of them and handed them over to other ignoble accomplices sharing the same deranged ambitions! In the truculence of inhumane conduct, he excelled in the mistreatment of his captives, ordering them to be flogged for the most insignificant wrong, or even for no wrong at all…. Once, on one of his plantations, he raped a black slave who was little more than a child. Her poor father was an elderly slave sixty-years of age. In a moment of supreme suffering before the body of his child, who had chosen death to hide her shame, he had condemned Amadeu’s vile act, accusing him of his daughter’s suicide. In retaliation, Amadeu ordered cruel farm hands to burn the old slave’s tongue with a red-hot iron until he collapsed in convulsions of agony.” [Yvonne A. Pereira, Memoirs of a Suicide, p. 506].

Fast forward, to Portugal, where Amadeu dies a rich man. He finds himself in the jungle surrounded by his old mistreated slaves. He spends years there tormented by all around him. Until one night, the old slave, Felicio, whom he had burned out his tongue, came up to him and said, “Come, master, get up… let’s leave this place.” [p. 509] Felicio had forgiven him and came to free him from those who had not learned how to let go of the desire for revenge.

The instructor explains to the audience, that many of the slaves, came from past lives as oppressor. Felicio, in his capacity working for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, committed many crimes and therefore paid his penance as a slave.

At the end of the interrogation, the instructor revealed a surprise for Amadeu;

“At a signal from Epaminodas (the instructor), a side door had silently opened and Felicio appeared, serene and grave, and walked towards his former master… Now in possession of his entire past, Amadeu looked at him in terror… Slowly and imperceptibly, Felicio transformed himself using the power of his will – which easily changes the configuration of the astral body – and let himself be seen in his role as Romulo Ferrari, Amadeu’s father!” [pp. 512-513]

The  machinations of the Spirit world are a wonder to behold. When you read about the relationships that have been set up in the spirit world for us incarnates, it makes you think, who exactly is my mother and father, brothers and sisters, and other relations. We are all intertwined in the business of forgiveness, learning and salvation, that we should look around and try to determine, who are we having trouble with right now, and what extra effort should I make to be at peace with that person.