Greetings and Opening prayer
First: group technique ‘Masked Ball Game’.
Prepare the environment as if a party will take place, with music played in the background. Select music that's purely spiritually-oriented; don’t play songs that encourage sensuality.
Give objects/materials for the adolescents to dress up: clown costumes, old costumes, happy masks; scarves and/or coloured belts. Leave the adolescents free to create their own character, while listening to music. Masks could be created according to suggestions expressed at the fifth part of the lesson.
Invite them to attend a masked ball. If the class is at night, the spiritist teacher can dim the lights from the centre, leaving some other source of light, like a lamp or candles. The decoration of the room is up to the person in charge of the lesson (the spiritist teacher can add an element of fun in the decorations).
For this technique to be successful the spiritist teachers need to be willing to encourage the adolescents to participate happily in this activity. If necessary, the young group can be warned about respecting one another as well as the place where they are.
Ask the young people to pair up and dance to the music. Everyone should switch pairs when the music stops. The one doesn’t manage to pair up with someone else will have to pose for a funny picture to be taken. The spiritist teacher can also take a group photo after they are dressed up (this material will help to remind the good times the young people and spiritist teachers had together).
Second: organize the group in a semicircle and talk about the relationship between kissing without dating and the masquerade ball.
Ask them how they felt; if they had fun;
If the mask provided made them feel more comfortable;
In the Middle Ages, the European nobility had the habit of organising great costumes and masked parties. It was very common for people to then exchange personality: princesses traded places with their maids to mislead the king so that he didn’t know she was "kissing without dating" a young commoner... and there are many other stories like this.
Would people have the courage to change personality without the use of masks?
What time of the year people still maintain this illusion idea of ‘masquerade balls’? At the carnival time; many still think that at this time they are ‘just having fun’ and want to make the most of it. They don’t take responsibility for their actions because they consider it to be the only time of the year when they can forget who they are and ‘have fun’...
Can we really forget who we are? What do you think?
Third: talk about the responsibility to yourself and to others. We know we have responsibilities to our bodies and our attitudes, but does anyone know the consequences that kissing without dating can bring to us?
1. We can allow someone to fall in love with us and then suffer because this person doesn’t have our affection. Ask if they know someone who “kissed without dating" someone, fallen in love and then suffered for falling in love with a person who didn’t feel the same in return. Unfortunately, there are many cases like this. The spiritist teacher can take cases to be read and discussed in class.
2. There are many Spirits who approach us to only enjoy the physical fluids, as to suck our energies, like vampires. Remember that this doesn’t happen when a couple has a true love relationship and respect each other mutually.
3. The respect with our own physical body, because when we “simply kiss" someone without knowing who that person is, we don’t know what habits she/he has. We can catch some disease or have the unpleasant surprise to be with someone who drank or used drugs. These substances will then go to our physical body.
Note: we can get to know the person with whom we are relating through dating. We will then get to know their tastes, attitudes and values, which doesn’t happen when we “simply kiss" someone without reflecting previously.
Fourth: Talk about their individual masks. Illustrate mentioning: nice young guys at home who are thieves and cause riots in the streets; young people who hide their sadness beneath a happy face; false friends; young people who use drugs to cope with difficulties or to feel courageous.
Do we recognize when we use masks?
SDo we need them? Why is that?
Note: It’s important for the spiritist teacher to have the patience to ask these questions, leading to a fraternal dialogue. He/she shouldn’t give answers but teach the adolescents to see the possibilities so they may choose the best ones for them; reminding that every choice has consequences.
Fifth: ask the adolescents to look at the mask they used for the masked ball game. This mask is split into two parts. Ask them to open it and see: the reflecting side was designed using silver foil to give the mirror effect, and the other has a phrase written about love and behaviour.
VHere are suggested phrases to be written inside one part of each of the masks:
"Love is not to accept everything. By the way, I suspect that there is lack of love where everything is accepted." Vladimir Mayakovski
"It's easy to love those who are far away. But it’s not always easy to love those who live beside us." Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction." Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Love your neighbour as yourself, do to others what we would others do to us." Jesus
" Everything is permissible” — but not everything is beneficial for me." Paul of Tarsus
Sixth: suggest them to take the mask home during the week to reflect on the sentence.
Closing prayer
Suggested lesson received from Aline Baños, Spiritist Centre ‘Caminheiros da Fraternidade’.
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
