Objective: make the students aware of the Fox sisters’ case, which was extremely important for Spiritism. The Hydesville Phenomena opened the doors to other phenomena worldwide, which let us access to the study of the spiritual world and its relation to us. It awakened the consciousness of many individuals, preparing us all for the advent of Spiritism.
Initial prayer
First: find out what the kids know related to the topic:
Please question the children and wait for their answer:
Have you heard of the Fox Sisters? What do you know about them?
Have you heard about Table Turnings? What do you know about this episode?
Second: tell them the story of the Fox Sisters.
Third: allow the students to reflect on the episode and question the following:
1. What would we attribute the noises, scratches and knocks to, at the house of the Fox Family? A disincarnate spirit was trying to communicate through the Fox sisters’ mediumship.
2. What was the spirit trying to do? Communicate with them. He wanted to tell them he was murdered and how this happened.
3. What was the family’s reaction regarding these facts? They got scared but decided to stay home and solve the mystery of those knocks.
4. How did they find out it was a spirit who wanted to communicate with them? They found out through the questions asked by Mrs. Fox: 'Is this a human being that answers my questions so correctly?' There was no rap. She then asked: 'Is it a spirit? If it is, please make two raps.' Two sounds were given as soon as the request was made. She then said: 'If it was an injured spirit, make two raps,' which were instantly made, causing the house to tremble. She asked: 'Were you injured in this house?' The answer was given as before. They were then able to communicate with the Hydesville spirit by dialogue was using a different number of raps for each letter of the alphabet. The girls used this simple code to ask questions of the spirit.
5. Was this the first time communication with spirits ever happened in Earth? The Bible talks about appearances, voices, direct writing and other mediumship phenomena.
On the New Testament, an angel appeared to Maria saying she would be the mother of Jesus. After his physical death, Jesus appeared as a Spirit to Maria Magdalene.
Moses received the Ten Commandments through his mediumship.
There are lots of mediumship facts through the history of the Church. Saint Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost and stolen articles, was a powerful Franciscan preacher and teacher. When Saint Antony of Padua was in Spain, and while he was one day preaching, his father, who was at Padua, was being led to death, having bee accused of murder. At the moment when he was about to be executed, Saint Antony appeared, proved his father to be innocent, and pointed out the real criminal, who underwent the punishment of his crime. It was subsequently ascertained that, at this time, Saint Antony had not quitted Spain.
It was in 1854, at the age of 50, that Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, a French educator, scientist, and philosopher began investigating mediumship. Kardec approached his investigation scientifically, searching for mechanistic explanations. He asked the spirits to give us an explanation of the phenomenon designated as bi-corporeity, which has given rise to the stories of doubles, that is to say, of individuals who have been proved to have been simultaneously present in two different places:
"Yes; a man who, as the result of his moral advancement, has attained to a certain degree of dematerialisation, can show himself in a place other than that in which his body is, and by the following means. Finding sleep to be stealing upon him, he asks of God that his spirit may be enabled to transport itself to a given place. If his request is granted, his spirit abandons his fleshly body, as soon as the latter falls asleep, and, accompanied by a part of his perispirit, leaves the gross material body in a state closely bordering on death. I say bordering on death, because there still remains in the body a link which cannot be defined, but which keeps up its union with the perispirit and the soul. The perispirit then appears in the place where the spirit desires to show him."
It was from the Fox Sisters’ episode that the communication with spirits started to happen more frequently. Soon later the expression ‘table-turning’ has come into general use to denote this particular phase of the manifestations. This happened through the circular movement of a table. This movement may be produced in any other object; but a table being the one with which most people make the trial, because the most convenient object for the purpose. This phenomenon, for a time, excited the curiosity of drawing-rooms. In order to produce the phenomenon referred to, the presence of one or two persons endowed with a special aptitude, and who are called Mediums, is necessary. Ten years after Allan Kardec started to research and get interested into this topic The Spirits' Book (Le Livre des Esprits in original French) was launched.
Fourth: please distribute one page for each child of the material called Spiritism. Please ask them to read it as a group (the child will read his/her page and explain it with his/her own words). The spiritist teacher should interact with the children after each explanation given.
Obs.: Allan Kardec’s correct name is Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail.
The PDF Spiritism was kindly sent to us by the spiritist illustrator Wilton Pontes - http://wiltondesigner.blogspot.com
Closing Prayer
Class Suggested being suitable for: 3rd cycle (11 to 12 years old) and Youth I (13 to 14 years old).
This class was sent to us by the teacher Sandra Ramos Medeiros, Spiritist Centre Fé, Amor e Caridade - Campo Grande/MS.
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
