Still Running Off at the Keyboard

NEW YORK - Troubled spirits come to Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood once a week to seek solace and advice from a man who by day works as a Wall Street bond salesman.

Each Monday a group of about 16 members of the Spiritists Group of New York meet in a building normally used for dance and acting rehearsals to discuss personal problems and work on their spiritual energy. Then they talk with tormented spirits to help them, in what organizers call charity work.

Joao, a Brazilian who asked his last name not be used to keep his Wall Street work and personal life separate, is a counselor at the Spiritist group in Manhattan.

"We ask that the spiritual benefactors be with us," Joao says, invoking the spirits. Almost immediately a middle-aged Brazilian man talks in a voice the group believe is a human spirit speaking from the afterlife.

"Why do I find myself in this miserable situation? Where are the angels and the heavenly music?" he asks, agitated.

Joao tells him, "My friend, we are here and we will help you. Your suffering will end soon."

Sobbing, the man raises his voice: "Why do they call me horrible names? I never killed anybody and they call me killer! Where is God? Where is the light that was promised to me?"

The man is calmed by Joao, who tells him not be afraid. For the next hour, others speak in the voices of troubled spirits.

Others hold pens, their eyes closed, and write in the dark, channeling messages from wiser spirits. "Do not be afraid to give testimony to help others on their path to spirituality," a woman named Jussara reads from one such message.

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