Dr. George Ritchie described in his book Return From Tomorrow what Jesus revealed to him during his near-death experience concerning what happens to some people who commit suicide for less than justifiable reasons. In the following excerpt, Jesus is giving George Ritchie a “tour” of one particular afterlife realm known as the “earthbound” realm which is located in the same place as the living. However, earthbound spirits are unseen and unheard by living people except by those who are psychic or mediums. Earthbound spirits temporarily “haunt” the living or particular places they once lived and are what is commonly referred to as “ghosts“.

In one house a younger man followed an older one from room to room. “I’m sorry, Pa!” he kept saying. “I didn’t know what it would do to Mama! I didn’t understand.”

But though I could hear him clearly, it was obvious that the man he was speaking to could not. The old man was carrying a tray into a room where an elderly woman sat in bed. “I’m sorry, Pa,” the young man said again. “I’m sorry, Mama.” Endlessly, over and over, to ears that could not hear.

In bafflement I turned to the Brightness (Jesus) beside me. But though I felt His compassion flow like a torrent into the room before us, no understanding lighted my mind.

Several times we paused before similar scenes. A boy trailing a teenaged girl through the corridors of a school. “I’m sorry, Nancy!” A middle-aged woman begging a gray-haired man to forgive her.

“What are they so sorry for, Jesus?” I pleaded. “Why do they keep talking to people who can’t hear them?”

Then from the light beside me came the thought, “They are suicides, chained to every consequence of their act.”

The idea stunned me, yet I knew it came from Him, not me, for I saw no more scenes like these, as though the truth He was teaching had been learned.