Museum of Purgatory and the Immortality of the Spirit

In Rome, outside the Vatican, next to the sacristy of the Church of the Sacred Heart by Suffrage of Souls, is located the so-called Purgatory Museum. Before it was denominated Christian Museum of the Beyond and it contained the first collection of evidence of the presence of disincarnated Spirits, acting in the physical world, collected by the Priest Vitor Jouet, who left his physical life in 1902.

According to the catholic conception, the documents collected and there exposed reveal the presence of souls of the Purgatory, asking for help to leave the place and to be able to enter paradise.

Indeed, such evidence shows the great presence of the immortal spiritual being, already admitted by many sectors of the Clergy, in spite of others who attribute such manifestations under very special conditions, very rarely and strictly to the souls of Purgatory, as well as more voices that point that the devil can easily be responsible for the phenomenon.

The Priest Jouet was able to gather numerous objects with handprints printed by the fire, which are part of the museum's collection. One of them is a piece of cloth, already aged by the years, in which you can see the image of a pyro-graphed hand, on June 21, 1789, in Belgium.

According to the documentation of the play, a spiritual entity appeared to his embodied son for eleven nights, making terrifying noises, and became tangible, on the twelfth occasion, when he called his son’s attention for his reproachful deeds, and afterwards laid his hand on the sleeve of his son's shirt, leaving there his mark. It is said that, due to what happened, the person was converted and founded a religious order.

The Spiritist Doctrine explains the occurrence of all the facts reported, firstly the "raps", spiritual manifestation of the simplest and most frequent, consisting, according to "The Book of Mediums", in "dry blows, sometimes thumps, weak and light, now clear, distinct, sometimes resounding, changing places and repeating themselves without any mechanical regularity" ("The Book of Mediums”, Chapter V - 83)

It is important to consider that, in the moment that there is communication of the extra-physical beings, constituting a language, by strokes or beats, one is faced with the physical phenomenon known as "Typtology" - classic in Spiritism, the famous case of the Fox sisters in Hydesville, in the United States in 1848.

Another issue to consider is the production of materialization, the deceased becoming visible, leaving engraved on the son's shirt the image of his hand. As in the workings of materialization intense energy is produced, the mark seems to have been formed by burning fingers in flames. This mediumistic phenomenon of physical effects, called parapirogenesis, that is, the inexplicable burning of objects or people, was investigated by Ernesto Bozzano, emeritus professor of philosophy of science at the University of Turin and an Italian Spiritist researcher, disincarnated in 1943, who published the book "Brands and Supernormal Prints of Hands of Fire", translated by the late confrere Francisco Klors Werneck and made available by the Spiritist e-book.

Worthy of mentioning the enigmatic Gospel passage with the Master Jesus, appearing to Mary Magdalene, in the middle of the tomb, newly materialized, asking her not to touch him. This very enigmatic phrase corroborates the explanation given earlier, for Magdalene would feel a vehement shock if she put her hands on Him (John 20:17). It is necessary to emphasize that, ignoring the phenomenon of materialization, the revisers of the most recent editions of the Bible substituted "do not touch me" for "do not stop me".

On November 15, 1887, when the Church of the Sacred Heart was only a chapel, during a religious ceremony, a fire broke out on the altar. The believers saw in the flames the image of a face with an expression of suffering. When the fire ceased, a print was seen of the face on the wall behind the altar. Another case of parapirogenesis and proof of the presence of spiritual individuality surviving death.

For the Catholic Church, the existence of the purgatory state is a truth of faith, established by the councils, emphasizing that it is a place where souls find themselves in atonement and purification through fire, their venial sins or grave errors forgiven by confession. This emblematic citation of fire, consuming the souls in the so-called Purgatory, represents the suffering felt in Spirit, already freed from the dead body, without the limitation of the time proper of the physical dimension, having the appearance or illusion of indeterminate time, of something that never seems to end ("eternal fire"), but it has its end, assured by Jesus, emphasizing that this imprisonment is transitory, because "verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt not go forth thence until thou payest the last cent" (Matthew 5:26).

The Christ refers to a prison represented by guilt and the strong feeling of remorse, imprisoning the creature, due to self-judgment that takes place in the spiritual intimacy, remembering with suffering of the steps taken in the dark paths of wrong actions. The person’s own faults are the bars that bind it, living with the distress and despair that come from the accusations of its own conscience. The being has becomes a slave of itself, responsible for the results of the unfortunate conduct adopted.

The Council of Trent, held in the sixteenth century, established that the penalty should be fulfilled ephemerally since forgiveness was granted to guilt. Who grants remission and freedom to the being? The answer is stated by the individual himself who, after becoming aware of his guilt, begins to experience remorse, acknowledging his mistake and repenting of all the faults committed. However, there is still the payment of the last penny, which will happen when he repairs, in due reincarnations, the wrong caused. Freedom shall be established when he has settled his debts with his victims, reimbursing in a new situation all the suffering committed, accepting his tests or atonements and worthy of consideration that "no merit he will be granted if he is not reached in his pride and in his material interests" (Issue 1000 of "The Book of Spirits").

Therefore, spiritual distress is always fleeting. In the Parable of the Rich and Lazarus, Jesus narrates the anguish of a disembodied being that, in the physical world, had been very wealthy and, because of his indifference, experienced intense suffering. The afflicted was said to be tormented by a flame (Luke 16:24). This purifying fire is not really definitive, since the patriarch Abraham himself, there, affectionately calls him "son". How could he still be Abraham's son if he was condemned forever and ever? Of course, being qualified as a son, he was not hopelessly lost.

In the work Our Home, psycho-graphed by the loved and cherished Chico Xavier, the spiritual author Andre Luiz mentions the "purifying fire" suffered by the souls disembodied in the so-called "Threshold", described as "a kind of purgatory zone, functioning as a region destined to depletion of mental waste, where the deteriorated material of the illusions which the creature acquired wholesale is burned slowly, disregarding the sublime opportunity of an earthly existence".

Andre points out that "if the task of the firemen in the great earthly cities is difficult, by the flames and waves of smoke that face them, the missionaries of the Threshold encounter very heavy fluids emitted without ceasing by thousands of unbalanced minds in the practice of evil, or terribly plagued in rectifying sufferings".

The Mentor emphasizes that "despite the shadows and anguish of the Threshold, there has never lacked divine protection there. Each Spirit stays there for as long as it takes".

Catholicism presumed the existence of painful states in the Dimension of the Beyond, qualifying them as Purgatory and Hell. The building of the Museum of the Souls of Purgatory awakens, in religious people or even unbelievers, the reflection regarding Spiritist themes, such as the communication of the so-called dead with those who still live in the flesh.

The presence of Jesus, after His physical death, "preaching to the Spirits in prison" (1-Epistle of Peter 3:19), reveals to all mankind that life continues beyond life and that the so-called "eternal hell" corresponds to an image of symbolic content. It may be pointed out that if Christ attended a spiritual place to preach to those who would be eternally lost, in truth no one is condemned in the extra-physical world and there will always be the opportunity for spiritual redemption, because to indoctrinate someone already sentenced forever has no purpose at all.

The Master undoubtedly reveals the transience of suffering Beyond-Tomb and testifies that the Father, Our Dear God, is essentially loving and merciful, not punishing any of His children, always giving them the chance of spiritual recovery and of standing, before the Infinite, as "Sons," who return to the Divine Breast already full of scientific knowledge and spiritual wisdom.

Translation:
Eleni Frangatos - eleni.moreira@uol.com.br