We continue today the methodical study of “Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice According to Spiritism” by Allan Kardec. The first edition was published in August 1, 1865. This work is part of the Kardecian Pentateuch. The answers to the questions suggested for discussion are at the end of the text below.
Questions for discussion
A. Do prayers also favor the Spirits doomed to evil?
B. Is the concept of time the same for the Spirits and men?
C. Are there haunted houses?
D. Can a Spirit of someone who committed a crime stay in a house on Earth?
Reading Text
229. The Spirit of the man, who murdered his brother and, years later, his own wife, in a little house near Castelnaudary, lived before that reincarnation, among the fiercest and savage tribes on Earth and, previously, in an inferior planet. If he had committed this same crime while he was living among the savages, would it have the same punishment? "Yes, but not as much - said St. Louis -. Since, being ignorant, he did not understand the extent of the offense" (Part II, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, questions 6 and 7).
230. When the mentioned Spirit was already calmer, thanks to the prayers offered in his behalf, he told Kardec that he understood nothing of the spiritual world, besides his crime, and that he could not leave the house in which he had committed the crime, except to wander in space, alone and unknown. "Whenever I wandered in space, all was darkness and empty, I do not even know how to describe it," said the unfortunate Spirit. "Today my remorse is more intense, and yet I do not have to stay in that house any longer, and am allowed to wander on Earth and learn with what I see there. I have more understanding of the enormity of my crime and, if I suffer less now, on the other side my regret increasingly tortures me..." (Part II, Chapter VI, the Spirit of Castelnaudary, question 17.)
231. During his long isolation, he felt no remorse at all, and that is why he suffered for such a long time - more than two hundred years... "Only when I felt remorse, stated the Spirit, did it cause, without my understanding of it, the conditions for the beginning of my freedom." (Part II, Chapter VI, the Spirit of Castelnaudary, question 19).
232. Kardec comments this case and explains: "We really have seen misers suffer at the sight of gold, which for them was only a true chimera. The proud Spirits, tormented by their jealousy of the honors given to others and not to them, men who ruled the Earth, mortified by an invisible power, constrained to obedience, in the presence of subordinates, who no longer bent to them; atheists, surprised by their doubts when facing the immensity, in absolute isolation, without one being to clarify them." "In the world of Spirits, adds Kardec, there are rewards for all virtues, but there are also penalties for all faults; the faults that escaped the laws of men are inevitably punished by the laws of God." (Part II, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, Kardec's comments).
233. Remembering that God does not forget any of his children, the Encoder says, "When men began to regularly establish relationships with the invisible world, one of the first consequences of Spiritism was to learn about how they could help their disembodied brothers. So God shows the existing solidarity among all beings of the Universe and at the same time He gives the law of nature as a base of the principle of fraternity." (Part II, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, Kardec's comments).
234. Convicted of murder by the jury of Foix and executed in September 1864, Jacques Latour communicated in Brussels, a few days after his execution in a state of great suffering. He exclaimed, "Oh! yes, pity ... I need it badly... You do not know how I am suffering... you do not know it and you cannot understand it. It is horrible! The guillotine! ... What is the guillotine compared to this suffering now? Nothing! It is a moment. This fire that devours me, yes, it is worse because it is a continual death, relentlessly and restlessly... it is endless! And my victims are there, showing me their wounds, chasing me with their eyes ..." (Part II, Chapter VI, Jacques Latour).
235. Jacques Latour said he saw all his victims and he was unable to escape them. Moreover, worse than that, he saw the people begging for mercy while he killed them. "He believed - confessed the unfortunate - that after death everything would be over. This is how I confronted punishment and God himself, denying Him! However, when I thought I was destroyed for ever, what a terrible awakening! Oh! yes, terrible, surrounded by corpses, menacing specters, feet immersed in blood!" (Part II, Chapter VI, Jacques Latour).
Answers to the proposed questions
A. Do prayers also favor the Spirits doomed to evil?
Yes, but a prayer only helps the Spirit who feels repentance. For those who, full of pride, rebel against God and persist in their error, even exaggerating it, in the same manner as the unfortunate do, prayer is useless, and it will only become of any help when repentance starts to germinate in their conscious. The ineffectiveness of prayer is also a punishment for them. Anyway, it only relieves those whose heart has not hardened. (Heaven and Hell - Part II, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, initial question to St. Louis 9 and 10 of the second message).
B. Is the concept of time the same for the Spirits and men?
No. In some cases, such as the Spirit of Castelnaudary, time seems even longer. Differently to what happens with the Spirits who have reached a very high degree of advancement, time is only for the lower, often lengthy, especially when they suffer. (Ibid, Part Two, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, questions 4 and 5).
C. Are there haunted houses?
Yes, the events of Castelnaudary are proof of that. The house in which the crime took place stayed uninhabited for a long time. (Ibid, Part Two, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, questions 1 and 2).
D. Can a Spirit of someone who committed a crime stay in a house on Earth?
Yes, it can. The Spirit who committed the crime in Castelnaudary was doomed to dwell in the house where the incident occurred, unable to fix his thought on something else except the crime, having it always before his eyes and believing that such torture would be eternal. He remained there as at the time of the crime itself, because any other remembrance was taken from him and all communication with any other Spirit was banned. On this Earth, he could only stay in that house, and in the Space, which was dark and lonely. (Ibid - Part Two, Chapter VI, The Spirit of Castelnaudary, questions 1 to 4).
