Greetings and Opening Prayer

         Objective: To demonstrate to the youth group the importance of the factors leading up to the Spiritist Codification.

         First: group dynamics.

         a) Use the text from Fergs -> get them to form three groups: A, B and C. Give group A the text called "Emmanuel Swedenborg"; the text called "Andrew Jackson Davis" should be given to group B and the text called "The Hydesville phenomena" should be given to group C.

         [Click here to see text]

         All three groups should read the text received and formulate 5 questions and answers related to it. Later on, the groups should exchange the texts to each other, until all three groups have read all three texts (but only formulated questions about the first text they received from the Spiritist Teacher).

         b) The spiritist teacher will then get the youth to come back to the larger group. Team A will ask one of the questions related to their text for teams B and C. Every time one of the teams gets a right answer, this will be worth one point. If none of both teams can answer the questions, the point goes to the team that formulated the question. It will then be Team B’s turn to challenge teams A and C. It will finally be team C’s turn to ask a question to teams A and B. The activity should continue until each team has asked all five questions to other groups.

          Note to the Spiritist Teacher:
         * If there’s a tie, it is up to the spiritist teacher to ask a question to break the tie;

         * The young group should only ask questions and answers related to the text given to them by the Spiritist Teacher in the beginning of the class;

         * It could be interesting to organize rules for teams to respond to the questions (before starting the game), such as:

                  - The team that will respond to the question is the one that raises the arm first (or say a predetermined word, ring a bell, etc.).
                  - It must be agreed beforehand if there is going to be another chance for the team that make mistakes (in the case of a member of the group that says the wrong answer, even if another group member could answer);
                  - It’s not allowed to scream when someone replies and/or interfere;
                  - It must be agreed beforehand if others can help fellow members of their teams;
                  - Questions that require answers with precise dates are not allowed (because the important thing is not to fix the exact day of the event, but the time it took place);

          Important note: the proposed activity (with five questions and three groups, totalling fifteen questions) was held in a youth meeting that lasted approximately one hour and thirty minutes. If the time you have for this meeting is less than this, it’s important to reduce the number of questions per group.

         Second: talk about each text, so that young group understands the importance of the facts leading up to the Spiritist Codification. Following the Youth curriculum, the Spiritist Codification should be the subject of the next class.

         Closing Prayer


         Bibliography:
         Handout from - FERGS - Module I - Spiritism. 2000.

         Spiritist Teachers: Ricardo and Maria Claudia.

         Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.