12-year-old boy murders 5 other children

This is one of the stories from the 1858 Revista Espírita, where Kardec studies the case of a 12-year-old boy who murders 5 other children. Briefly: a 12-year-old boy put five children in a trunk, locked the trunk, and left them there until they died. Having been seen by another girl, the 12-year-old boy was reported and then confessed everything, in the most cold-blooded manner and without expressing regret.

Here, too, a reflection on a crime such as these is in order. Could it be that, as many say, these five children were killed to fulfill the “redemption of past debts”? If so, what would be the degree of responsibility of the other? We deal with this matter in this other article, click here

Another question: is the spirit of the murderer boy necessarily evil? In The Spirits' Book, Kardec clarifies:

“In fact, consider that in your homes children are possibly born whose spirits come from worlds where they have contracted habits different from yours, and tell me how these beings could be in your midst, bringing passions different from those you nurture, inclinations, tastes, entirely opposites. to yours; how could they rank among you, but as God ordained, that is, passing through the tamis of childhood?”

OLE, question 385

Continuing in the article, Kardec interrogates the spirit of a medium's sister, “who passed away twelve years ago and always showed superiority as a spirit”. Let's present the main points of these questions and their answers:

2. ─ What motives would have impelled a boy of that age to commit such an atrocious action and with such cold-bloodedness? ─ Evil has no age. It is natural in a child and reasoned in an adult man.

Observation: “The child is not good or bad until he has the discernment of one or the other. It is what is called the state of innocence, which is somehow the sleep of consciousness.” Paul Janet, Little Elements of Morals. Already in the adult, or man who makes the distinctions of his moral conscience, who uses reason, he choose to do or not do an action, which results in a good or bad deed. Even so, if he acts in “evil”, it is only because he is not aware of the good, he has not progressed enough to understand.

3. ─ Doesn't its existence in a child, without reasoning, denote the incarnation of a much inferior Spirit? - It comes directly from the perversity of the heart: it is his own Spirit that dominates him and drives him to perversity.

5. ─ In his previous existence, would he have belonged to Earth or to an even lower world? ─ I'm not sure, but it must belong to a world much more backward than Earth. He dared (?) come to Earth. You will be doubly punished.

Comment: When the evoked Spirit explains about double punishment, we understand that he means that this Spirit has acquired some consciousness and he chose come to Earth. Here, being born, he preferred to experience his passions and imperfections, instead of trying to overcome them. Most likely, you still don't understand divine laws, such as the law of progress.

6. - At that age, would the boy enough aware of the crime he committed? Will you be responsible as a Spirit? ─ He was the age of conscience. This is enough.

7. ─ Once this Spirit dared come to Earth, for him very high, can he be constrained to return to a world in relation to his nature? ─ Your punishment is precisely retrograde; it is hell itself. This is the punishment of Lucifer, of the spiritual man who has lowered himself to the level of matter; it is the veil that henceforth hides from him the gifts of God and his divine protection. Make an effort, then, to win back those lost goods and you will have reconquered the paradise that Christ came to open for you. It is the presumption, the pride of the man who wanted to conquer what only God could have (?).

At this point, with answer 7, we have arrived at several understandings:

• To dare means to choose. The principle of autonomy is always present in Kardec.
• The Spirit does not retrograde. Here, it is a material retrogradation, according to the state of development of the Spirit. It is like the student who is forced to repeat the year, because, in fact, he has not learned;
• We understand that while the Spirit experiences negative habits, vices, he is far from understanding the good;
• It may look like the picture of falling into sin, but we can understand it from the point of view of sinking into habits that lead to imperfections.

It is the picture of original sin explained by Spiritism: the Spirit is not created full, pure and wise, but ignorant and simple and, when it lives in matter, it acquires experiences. When he errs, he does not commit a sin, but only errs. The error can be totally unconscious, from which learning is born, or it can be, in a certain way, conscious, that is, by choice, which is when the Spirit developed a habit that gave rise to an imperfection. Hence we have the following: if the Spirit no understands that imperfection causes delay and suffering, he just continues to follow in incarnations, until he acquires knowledge to understand the wrong he has done, and he repents. then pass to atone the fruit of your imperfections, by the free choice of your trials, through the incarnations, in order to deal with this habit, with a view to getting rid of it.

We all go through it, and all of us will reach relative perfection.

The questions follow the evoked Spirit:

8. In what way is the Earth superior to the world to which the Spirit of whom we have just spoken belonged? ─ There is a weak idea of justice there. It's a start of progress.

9. ─ Does it follow that in worlds inferior to Earth there is no idea of justice? ─ No. Men live there only for themselves and their motive is nothing but the satisfaction of their passions and instincts.

10. ─ What will be the position of this Spirit in a new existence? ─ If repentance erases, if not totally, at least in part, the enormity of your faults, then you will remain on Earth; if, on the contrary, he persists in what you call final impenitence, he will go to a place where man is on the level of animals.

Note: Kardec developed this understanding much later, in the work Heaven and Hell: “Repentance is useless when it is only a consequence of suffering. Beneficial repentance is that which is based on the regret of having offended God, and the ardent desire for reparation. I haven't gotten to that point yet, unfortunately. Recommend me to the prayers of all those who dedicate themselves to the suffering, because I need them”. Heaven and Hell, Allan Kardec

"O repentance sincere is an act of the Spirit's free will, predisposing him to free himself from the condition of unhappiness by his effort. Thus, the soul's repentance is not the fear of continuing to suffer, which constrains it, submitting it to an external will (heteronomy). In fact, he represents the awareness of divine laws, which makes him understand his own ability to achieve happiness through improvement (autonomy). This condition makes him recognize the strength of his will and awakens his self-esteem, leading him back to the path of good.”
In other words: if he repents, he can reincarnate here, which is a planet of proofs and atonements. If not, you will have to reincarnate on a planet that gives you the conditions to learn through the reincarnation exercise itself.

note by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo on Heaven and Hell

11. ─ So can he find on Earth the means to atone for his fault, without being forced to return to a lower world? ─ In the eyes of God, repentance is sacred, because it is man who judges himself, which is rare on your planet.