On Crimes and Punishments
 
Mediumship in the service of Law

 

1. From the Codification, mediumship, despite the systematic incredulity of some "wise and prudent," has lost its supernatural and mysterious character and began to be seen as a natural ability inherent to man himself, according to the statement made by Allan Kardec (The Mediums' Book, No. 159) when he states that "everyone who is in any degree influenced by Spirits is, by that very fact, a medium." Life has shown that it manifests itself at every moment and every hour and that it does not adjust itself to the

medium's will, particularly and especially in the face of the constant action of Spirits on human actions, as reported in question 459 of The Spirits' Book.

Given this and in view of the constant interaction of material and spiritual planes, mediumship can be seen today as one more means of communication, which has nothing exceptional, unusual or fantastic, as pointed by Herminio Miranda who regards it as a "communication system between intelligences located in different degrees of consciousness" [1] .

History is full of actions, procedures and activities of mediumistic nature, despite the total ignorance of their authors with respect to the ability they possess. Such people are included in the vast list of so-called "intuitive mediums" under the teachings of Kardec: "The transmission of thought also occurs through the intermediacy of the Spirit of the medium, or rather his soul, for that is how the incarnated Spirit is named. The disincarnated Spirit, in this case, does not cause the medium to write by acting on his hand; for he neither holds nor guides it. The soul, under this impulsion, directs his hand and the hand moves the pencil. We have to take note of a very important point: the disincarnated Spirit does not substitute himself for the medium's soul, for the soul cannot be displaced. He dominates it without the medium being aware of his action and impresses it with his will." He then concludes: "He is therefore aware of what he is writing, although the thoughts are not his. It is what is called intuitive medium "(Medium's Book, pg 223). 

The ferocity of Justice had reached the point that no
longer moved the people 

As a rule, almost all great thinkers, scientists, artists, etc were or are, therefore, mediums. Similarly, the great tyrants of humanity, whose deeds have bloodied their past, cannot escape this condition.

2. One of the most impressive examples of this situation is the well-known work On Crimes and Punishments, which was a milestone for the humanisation of criminal law. Although defended and preached by the great names of the Enlightenment, it could not thrive in Europe due to strong opposition from the holders of civil and religious power.

More especially, the opposition was stronger in Italy due to the influence of the Papal States whose political power was undeniable. But it was exactly there, from the mid eighteenth century, that a host of Spirits reincarnated with the specific task of modifying the sanguinary and cruel structure of the criminal law, which came to indeed occur in the late nineteenth century with the creation of the Positive or Anthropological School. Until then nameless absurdities had always been committed in the name of law and justice, particularly in the name of criminal law. The jurists then not only recommended, but also stimulated the cruelties inflicted by the current procedural justice system. Besides sustaining that torture was normal means of evidence in all branches of Law.

The ferocity of Justice had reached the point that no longer moved the people in general. In the introduction present in the Italian 1944 edition of Beccaria's book, authored by University Professor Piero Firenze Calamandrei, he remembers that it was a common spectacle to see that the same "crowd, which on the one hand forms a circle around an acrobat, focuses, on the other hand, with the same semblance of unconcern, to watch a hanged man swaying in the air as the kids play below it without even bothering the lugubrious cadaver suspended over their heads " [2]. 

Beccaria proved himself to be an inexplicable phenomenon in the eyes of intellectuals of the time 

In July 1764, in Leghorn (Livorno), a young Italian nobleman, Cesare Beccaria Bonesana [3] , the Marquis of Beccaria, who at the time was twenty-six years of age, wrote the above mentioned book, rebelling for the first time clearly and directly against the factionalism and cruelty silenced by the Law (worth remembering that on that occasion Brazil was governed by the inauspicious Phillip I Ordinance): "throughout History we can see that the laws that are, or should be, conventions of free men, have been nothing more than the instrument of momentary desire of some or the product of an ephemeral and occasional need. They were not dictated by a profound analyst of human nature who, by focusing all human actions on to a single point, would regard the law according to the following purpose: "the maximum well-being shared among the greater number of citizens." [4]   

3. Beccaria proved himself to be an inexplicable phenomenon in the eyes of the intellectuals of his generation.  His book caused a huge controversy. It was welcomed by the liberal souls of his time and rejected by the ruling aristocracy, especially by the Church that saw it as a highly dangerous instrument for their policy of temporal power, the weakening of the dogmas and the fight against their cruel anti-Semitism (see The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and The Popes against the Jews, both by David I. Kertzer). It is, therefore, not by coincidence or by chance that arose among his detractors and enemies the figure of Brother Angelo Fachini, who advocated the death penalty for those who defied the untouchable dogmas of the Church. However, the book's success was so great that in 1807, in Italy alone, it had reached thirty editions and had been repeatedly translated into almost all languages, a fact that is repeated until the present day. 

During the meetings of the Academy, he seemed
lazy and uninterested

The author had no adequate legal training or vocation, although he had graduated in Law from the University of Pavia, where he was a mediocre and disinterested student. In this respect, the historian Cesare Cantú, who belonged to the group of his admirers, did not hide his surprise at the work by proclaiming Beccaria's ignorance on the subject covered in the book: "You know little about Law and even less about History". The author of the preface aforementioned also expresses his surprise in view of the work, a fact that allows those who have eyes to see, to clearly observe the role of Spirits in its elaboration: "In fact, it must not be forgotten that Marquis Cesare Beccaria had no vocation as a jurist (this statement, as regards to those like him who, as soon as he began to write about legal matters, he was able to do it with such mastery that he appears in the face of the centuries, just due to this first essay, as the founder of the Italian school of criminal law...)".

4. After graduation in Law, Beccaria limited his activities to discussions about Politics and Economics within a group formed by him and the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri, which they named the Academy of Fists. Oblivious to the legal problems, it seemed to confirm with their mode of action the famous phrase by Francesco Carrara, most famous name of the Classical School of Criminal Law: "Io sono sventuratamente convinto che política e giustizia non nacquero sorelle”" (Unfortunately I have become convinced that politics and justice were not born sisters).

According to his biographers, On Crimes and Punishments was not born from a cold and mechanical work by a scholar researcher, but from a sudden impulse of rebellion against the on-going cruelties. Moreover, in this regard, in a letter to Pietro Verri, he said he was moved by "my tyrant, the imagination." This "tyrant" who dominated him, was indisputably his mediumship. During the meetings of the Academy, he seemed lazy and uninterested. 

These considerations are a small sampling of
Beccaria's mediumship

Idleness led him to a state of true despair, since political issues did not thrill him anymore. He then asked his companions to suggest a theme for him to develop, so they proposed to him to write about issues of justice. Although entirely unaware, he stood to the task and, like psychographers, he jotted his ideas on disorderly loose sheets of paper. Only after being written, they were assembled to form a book, but, even so, it should be noted that the first two editions did not even have a paragraph division. And the eloquent proof of his mediumship is on Calamandrei's account in the above mentioned preface to the book: "Nonetheless, it was precisely his imagination whose praise had been made on another occasion in an article in Il Caffè, which turned out to be his strength as a writer; while his friends discoursed and discussed as dialecticians on torture or death penalty, it was this very imagination who lively depicted to him, as if he had them before his very eyes, convulsions and curses of the tortured ones; it forced him to write under the acute distress of those visions, as if the pages had been dictated to him by the very agony of the victims. " [5]  

5. Those considerations contain only a small sampling of Beccaria's unmistakable mediumship. Moreover, as a support to the conclusion, it should be taken into account the fact that his ideas, developed throughout the book, reflect almost a century before, what the Spirits of the Codification dictated to Kardec. There is a perfect harmony between what is stated, for example, in questions 614, 615 and 619 of The Spirits' Book and the assertion on the Divine Justice, as quoted: "The Divine Law and the Natural Law are, in essence, eternal and unchangeable, because the relationship among its objects are always the same. However, Human Law, or political justice, not representing more than a reaction between the action and the changing state of society, may vary depending on how this action is advantageous or useful to society, which makes this justice best understood only by those who analyze the complicated and shifting relationships of those who form that society, in the agreements they make."

[1] REENCARNAÇÃO E IMORTALIDADE (REINCARNATION AND IMMORTALITY), Ed Mar, Rio, 1972 pg 54.

[2] DOS DELITOS E DAS PENAS (ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS), José Bushatskv, Editor, São Paulo, 1978, pg 69.

[3] Op cit, p

[4] Op cit., pg 100