We know that since ancient times the Earth and its inhabitants have suffered great cataclysms and destructive tragedies on a continuous and permanent basis. Natural geological phenomena; hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, tidal waves, eruption of volcanoes. As well as others of diverse nature: fires, armed conflicts, wars, collective accidents, etc., where the man in the street, observing what is happening around him and spiritually unaware of its meaning, has revealed himself before Divine Justice asking: why?

But let us remember that Humanity has shed many, many tears with the decisions brought about by intolerant religious, arbitrary governments, dishonest and violent politicians, as well as by clever businessmen who exploit the masses, leading them to misery and suffering....

Periodically the Divine gathers those aggressors of Cosmic Consciousness from various periods and invites them to mass, painful, afflictive disincarnation, so that they may redeem the debts committed, without the need for other human agents to do so.

Some, who unleash the tragedies, through ignorance, folly or perversity, thus become, without realising it, instruments of the Sovereign Law, continuing the irrefutable work of purification proposed by Divine Justice.

Significantly, the last hundred years have seen a wide variety of devastating events.

For example, in the last century, on 18 April 1906 in San Francisco, USA, on the San Andreas Fault, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Ritcher scale caused the deaths of more than 3,000 people.

The ocean liner "Titanic" sinks during its voyage from Southampton (UK) to New York on 15 April 1912, 1,523 people die and disappear out of a total of 2,227 passengers.

On 1 September 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake destroyed Tokyo and Yokohama.

In 1960, specifically on 22 May, Chile was the victim of an earthquake, with the loss of more than 2.000 people. The same situation was repeated later on 27 February 2010, with 525 deaths and more than 2.000.000 people affected.

In the early morning hours of 26 April 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, considered the most serious nuclear disaster to date. It directly killed 31 people and forced the government of the Soviet Union to evacuate 116.000 people.

At the beginning of this new century, 11 September 2001, which we highlight for its political significance, the destruction and burning of the "World Trade Center" in Manhattan (New York), known as the "Twin Towers", the most characteristic buildings of US economic and military power, where the tragedy caused the death of 2.600 people and more than 1.000 wounded.

On 26 August 2008, the plane of flight JK-5022 bound for Gran Canarias crashes at Madrid-Barajas airport with the loss of 173 passengers, leaving 19 survivors.

In Japan, on 11 March 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami with waves up to 10 metres high killed thousands and thousands of people, as well as serious consequences for humanity afterwards.

And the man asks himself again: why?

Allan Kardec, the Codifier of the Spiritism, also enquired of the "Greater World" as to the reasons for such tragedies, and the Higher Spirits explained in the ‘Spirits’ Book’ that destructive calamities are tests which give man the opportunity to evolve and to exercise his intelligence by showing patience and resignation in the face of God's will. They are also an opportunity to advance Humanity more rapidly.

Destruction is necessary for the moral renewal of spirits, who achieve in each existence a new degree of evolution, giving each of us the means of progressing through the knowledge of good and evil, man being the one who does not avail himself of it.

The spiritism shows us that all afflictions have a just cause, originating in the present existence or in previous lives. That is why Spiritual Do-gooders do not become rebellious in the face of tragedy. On the contrary, they are serene and compassionate in the face of suffering.

They also inform us that such occasions offer man the opportunity to awaken the human conscience towards solidarity and to manifest his feelings of selflessness, unselfishness and love for his fellow man.

The Spirit of Emmanuel, through the psychography of Francisco Cándido Xavier in his work "The Comforter that Jesus promised", clarifies the difference between trial and atonement. He comments that the trial is the struggle that shows the rebellious and lazy disciple the path of work and spiritual edification. Atonement, on the other hand, is the penalty imposed on the spirit that has committed a crime.

How does the collective test work?

In the collective ordeal, all incarnated spirits are summoned to participate in the same debt for their dark and criminal past.

According to the law of compensations, the mechanism of justice then functions naturally, through the envoys of Christ, who summon the co-participants of yesterday's debt for their common redemption.

That is why we often call "painful chance" the circumstances that bring together the most disparate beings in the same accident, resulting in the death of their physical body or the most diverse mutilations of their physical body, within the framework of their individual commitments.

We find in the book "Letters and Chronicles", the message received by the medium Chico Xavier, dictated by the Spirit Brother X, pseudonym adopted by the Brazilian journalist and writer Humberto de Campos, disincarnated in 1934, in relation to the biggest fire in history that occurred in the "Great North American Circus" in the city of Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 17, 1961, when nearly 2,000 people were injured and 323 died.

The story told by Brother X takes us back to a tumultuous night in the distant year 177, in Lyon, where Marcus Aurelius reigned piously and although he had not drafted any resolution that would cause major harm to Christians, he had allowed the city to apply - with the utmost rigour - all the existing laws against them.

That is why the killing went on so terribly.

No one examined needs or conditions. Women and children, the elderly and the sick, as well as healthy men and prominent personalities were arrested, tortured and summarily eliminated for declaring their allegiance to the Nazarene.

Passing through the crowded manor towards the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône, prisons multiplied, and at the bottom of the hillside – later known as Fourviére hill – a large circus had been improvised, with high fences erected around a huge arena.

People representative of the Lyonnais world were slaughtered in their homes or brutally beaten in the fields, making a public mockery of those disadvantaged by fortune, including a large mass of slaves.

The wild beasts now seemed to be in a torpor, after slaughtering thousands of victims with their bloody jaws. New torments were invented for this reason. Unconscious executioners devised strange tortures.

Educated ladies and naive girls were disgraced before their heads were cut off, helpless old men were whipped to death. Children were torn from the bosom of their families and sold to passing merchants to serve as domestic animals in distant provinces, and noble lords were slain in their own vineyards.

More than 20.000 people had already been killed.

On that night, to which we have referred at the beginning of this narrative, the arrival of Lucius Gallus, a superior officer, who enjoyed the special attentions of the Emperor, was announced. They therefore thought of appropriate commemorations for the occasion.

For this reason, while gladiators and minstrels crowded in there, the patrician Altius Plancus presided over the meeting and planned the festivities. The chariots arriving from Vienna were to be welcomed, and the circus was to provide them with some unusual scenes. The best men were to be brought together, with the cadre of athletes, the team of dancers and the fight between the wild bulls.

• Excellent idea! – Plancus spoke aloud – but, in consideration of the visitor, it is imperative to add something new that Rome doesn't know...

A horrible scream arose from the assembly:

• Christians to the wild beasts! Christians to the wild beasts!

When the shouting stopped, the council leader said again:

• That is nothing new! There are unfavourable circumstances. The lions recently arrived from Africa are lazy.

After general laughter, Alcio continued wryly:

• However, I listened to some colleagues today, and we will present a plan that I hope will prove to be true.

And tonight – at the height of the tributes – we will gather them in the sand, wet with resins and duly fenced with oil-soaked farpas, leaving only a narrow passage for the release of the strongest.

After we show them festively in public, we will set fire to the whole area, putting on them the old horses that are no longer useful for our games... Actually, the flames and the animals' feet will create a lot of new situations...

And raising his voice even higher, he said:

• Hands up who is willing to cooperate.

Hundreds of spectators raised their right hands and then applauded in delirium.

• Each of us bring one of them... These pests are hidden everywhere... Hunting them down and exterminating them is now our service.

During the whole night, more than a thousand people – avid for cruelty – searched humble residences and, the next day, in the afternoon sun, long lines of women and children, in screams and tears, at the end of the superb spectacle, met their death, burnt in the flames that rose in the wind or torn to pieces by the running horses.

In the meantime, the justice of the Law, through reincarnation, brought all those responsible – in various positions of physical age – back together again for a painful atonement in the Brazilian city of Niterói, in a moving circus tragedy.

It is not infrequently that one meets people who are not aware of the need for destructive scourges as they occur. They are, however, invited to serious self-reflection, saving themselves, so that their existences may become profitable, modifying their conduct and enlarging the area of personal enlightening service and benefit to Humanity.

For this reason, many men and women who find themselves in the midst of unfortunate events are sometimes inexplicably saved, as was the case in the event quoted below:

More than 250.000 people died in the Indian Ocean on 25 December 2004, due to a tsunami, a Japanese word meaning harbour-bay and wave. What is its origin?

The spirit of Joanna de Angelis informed the Brazilian medium Divaldo P. Franco that the victims of the devastating phenomenon to which we have referred were among the ancient barbarian legions that practically destroyed Europe and other peoples in the past, especially Alaric I and his armies when, due to their cruel disposition, they subjugated several countries, among them Thrace and Greece, after previously threatening Constantinople and sacking and burning Rome for six days.

The humanity is made up of Spirits in primary states, but also of those who have already reached a higher state of evolution and who are examples that attract multitudes.

Unfortunately, unfortunate social phenomena have occurred and continue to occur because of the indifference of some leaders, but we are moving forward with progress towards the happiness that cannot be postponed under the command of Jesus.

It is natural, therefore, that all peoples should unite and help each other, as these painful phenomena will occur again, possibly more severe, demanding our care and attention, as we wait for them to happen and where they will happen again.

The spiritual maturity of a people is recognised by its feelings of fraternity, of human solidarity and not only by its scientific and technological achievements, which, although they help a lot, do not prevent the destructive scourges of this and other aspects from occurring.

The spiritism teaches us that if the faults committed collectively are atoned for in solidarity, the progress made in common is likewise in solidarity.

We don't know our past, it is true, but by being aware of our present we are still in time to build a much brighter spiritual future.

Article written by Juan Miguel Fernández Muñoz