Opening Prayer
First: please tell the children the story
Hydesville Phenomena and Table Turnings.
We engaged the children in telling this story. We started this class by distributing small cards made out of colourful board paper. In each card there were phrases written which complemented the story. The words in bolt are related to the questions the spiritist teacher should ask as he/she tells the story. The child who has the right answers written on his/her card should read it out loud to the rest of the group.
If you would like us to send you a few drawings found on the internet to tell the story, please send us an e-mail.
Words used:
- Hydesville - a small hamlet about 20 miles from Rochester, New York in the United States.
- Fox Family – constituted of Mr. John Fox (a Methodist farmer), his wife Margarete and their two daughters, Kate and Margaretta. Kate was 9 and Margaretta was 12 at that time. The Fox family had six children, but only these two lived with the parents.
- Question the raps – to ask questions which were answered with raps.
- Dead – spirit without a physical body; disincarnate.
- Mediums – people who are "way"; "instrument" of communication between the incarnate and disincarnate.
- Phenomena – events that call our attention for being different; unusual
- Table-turning – type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was a means of communicating with the spirits; the alphabet would be slowly called over and the table would tilt at the appropriate letter, thus spelling out words and sentences.
- Physical Manifestations – events that could happen through raps, noises or the movement of objects.
- Rivail – French teacher and educator. His full name is Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail. He is known today as the systematiser of Spiritism for which he laid the foundation with the five books of the Spiritist Codification.
- Mr. Fortier – Rivail’s friend. He was the one who told Rivail of the table-turning craze.
- Sceptical – someone who doubts/questions.
- Spiritist Codification – the name given to the set of books codified by Allan Kardec which were received from the superior spirits through the mediums.
Obs.: please only distribute the answers part to the children. If the number of children is bigger than the number of cards, the spiritist teacher could repeat some items or even all cards, so that every one has a chance of participating into this activity. After reading the answers, the spiritist teacher should repeat and add any necessary comments. Durante a narrative, it is possible to question the children in regards to other parts of the story, such as: the meaning of April Fools' Day is; the meaning of the cellar in the story, etc.
Second: the spiritist teacher should conclude the story by saying mediumship phenomena has always existed. Please mention the Ten Commandments received by Moses at the Sinai Mount, Jesus’ appearance in spirit to the apostles, etc.
Please remind them the experiences with table turnings were very important at that time for the birth of the Spiritist Doctrine. That’s why they were coordinated by the Spiritual Benefactors. On the present days we should not play spirit of the glass. We should not call spirits to make experiments or play with them because there is no respectable and superior reason behind this experiment. In addition, there is no support from the spiritual benefactors, which could allow spirits who want to disharmonise the ambient to manifest. They could also disharmonise the lives of the ones who are calling them.
e suggest the spiritist teacher reads the text
Spirit of the glass. Is that a game?, taken from the Seara’s bulletin; from July 2000.
Third – activity: cross-word, using words from the story.
Click here to get access to it.
Answer.
Closing Prayer
Class suggested being suitable for: 2nd (9 to 10 years old) and 3rd cycles (11 to 12 years old).
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
