Example 6 - ANTÔNIO B….

— Antônio B…, a writer of most esteemed merit, who had filled with distinction and integrity many public offices in Lombardy, fell apparently dead, around the year 1850, from an apoplectic attack.

As sometimes happens in such cases, his death was considered real, the traces of decomposition marked upon the body contributing all the more to the error.

Fifteen days after the burial, a fortuitous circumstance brought about the exhumation, at the family's request. It concerned a medallion that had by chance been forgotten in the coffin. But what was the astonishment of those present when, upon opening it, they noticed that the body had changed position, having turned face down and — a horrible thing — that one of the hands had been partly eaten by the deceased.

It then became evident that the unhappy Antônio B… had been buried alive, and must have succumbed under the action of despair and hunger.

— Mr. Antônio B…, evoked at the Society of Paris, in August 1861, at the request of relatives, gave the following explanations:

— Evocation. — What do you wish?

— At the request of one of your relatives, we evoke you with pleasure and will be happy if you are willing to answer us. — A. Yes, I desire to do so.

— Do you remember the incidents of your death? — A. Ah! Certainly I remember them; but why revive that memory of the punishment?

— Were you in fact buried through carelessness? — A. So it had to be, since the apparent death bore all the characters of real death; I was almost bloodless.

One ought not, however, to impute to anyone an event that was predestined for me from the moment I was born.

— Do these questions trouble you? Should we put an end to them? — A. No. You may continue.

— Since you left the reputation of a man of worth, we hope you were happy. — A. I thank you, for I know that you will intercede for me. I will do what I can to answer you, and, if I cannot do so, one of your guides will do it for me.

— Can you describe to us your sensations of that moment? — A. What a painful trial to feel myself shut up between four boards, hindered, utterly hindered! To cry out! Impossible! The voice, for lack of air, had no echo! Ah! what torture for the unhappy man who strives in vain to breathe in a confined space! I was like one condemned at the mouth of a furnace, the heat aside.

I wish such an end, accomplished by like tortures, upon no one. No, I wish such an end upon no one!

Oh! cruel punishment of a cruel and ferocious existence! I could not say what I then thought; only, reviewing the past, I vaguely glimpsed the future.

— You said: cruel punishment of a ferocious existence… How can this assertion be reconciled with your unblemished reputation? — A. What is one existence worth before eternity?!

Certainly, I sought to be honest and good in my last incarnation, but I had accepted such an epilogue beforehand, that is, before incarnating. Ah!… Why question me about that painful past which only I and the good Spirits sent by the Lord knew?

But, since it must be so, I will tell you that in a former existence I had buried a woman alive — my wife, and, what is more, in a ditch!

The law of talion was to be applied to me. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

— We thank you for these answers and we ask God to forgive you the past, in consideration of the merit of your last incarnation. — A. I will return later, but, nevertheless, the Spirit of Erastus will complete this communication of mine.

— Instructions of the medium's guide.

From this communication you may infer the correlation and immediate dependence of your existences upon one another; the tribulations, the vicissitudes, the difficulties and human sorrows are always the consequences of a former life, culpable or ill-used.

I must nevertheless tell you that endings such as this of Antônio B… are rare, since, if an upright existence ended in such a manner, it was because he himself had requested it, with the aim of shortening his erraticity and reaching the higher Spheres more quickly.

Indeed, after a period of disturbance and moral suffering, inherent to the expiation of the hideous crime, this will be forgiven him, and he will rise to a better world, where awaits him the victim who long ago forgave him.

Make use of this cruel example, dear Spiritists, in order to bear, with patience, the moral and physical sufferings, all the little miseries of the Earth.

Q. What benefit can Humanity derive from such punishments? — A. Penalties do not exist to develop Humanity, but for the punishment of those who err.

In fact, Humanity can have no interest whatever in the suffering of one of its members. In this case, the punishment was appropriate to the fault.

Why are there madmen, idiots, paralytics? Why do these die burned, while those endure the tortures of a long agony between life and death? Ah! believe me; respect the sovereign will and do not seek to probe the reason of the decrees of Providence! God is just and does only good. Erastus.

Does this fact not contain a great and terrible teaching? Thus, the justice of God always reaches the guilty one and, though delayed, does not fail to follow its course.

Is it not highly moralizing to know that, if great culprits end peacefully, in the abundance of earthly goods, the hour of expiation will nonetheless sound for them sooner or later?

Such penalties are comprehensible, not only because they are more or less within reach of our sight, but because they are logical. We believe, because reason admits it.

An honorable existence does not, therefore, exclude the trials of life, which are chosen and accepted as a complement of expiation — the remainder of the payment of a debt settled before receiving the price of the progress accomplished.

Considering how frequent, in past centuries, even among the most elevated and enlightened classes, were the acts of barbarity that today repel us; how many murders committed in those times of contempt for the life of others, the weak being crushed by the powerful without scruple; then we shall understand that many of our contemporaries have past stains to expunge, and we shall not be astonished either at the considerable number of persons who succumb, victims of isolated accidents or of collective catastrophes.

The despotism, the fanaticism, the ignorance and the prejudices of the Middle Ages and of the centuries that followed bequeathed to future generations an enormous debt, which is not yet settled.

Many misfortunes seem to us undeserved, only because we see only the present. [1] Deprived of the circulation of the blood. Discoloration of the skin from the deprivation of blood.