Spiritists, we need talk about death  1ª Part
Claudia Gelernter

“Oh, Master!

Grant that I may seek rather

be consoled as to console;

understand that being understood;

love to be loved ...

it is in giving that we receive;

is in pardoning that we are pardoned ...

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life! "

(Part of the Prayer for Peace)

Dialogue everyday common nowadays: One daughter and her mother are in the kitchen, sitting, eating a delicious piece of cake, with milk and coffee. The child, showing some anxiety, said, "Mom, I'm afraid of dying." Wide-eyed and heart wildly, the mother knocked three times on the wooden table and said, in a firm voice: "Imagine, girl! Turn the fuck up there! You have a whole life ahead, nothing will happen wrong with you. "

The daughter is silent and learns with this attitude, three concepts:

1. The subject of death should be avoided.

2. Death is something far, only happens with a distance or when we are very old.

3. Certain rituals, such as, for example, knock three times on the table, may help stave off the death of our lives.

That is, the child has to learn three lies that will possibly spread to the next generations.

Now imagine that the girl's cousin came to our history disincarnating days after the scene described above. So, quite upset with that unusual situation, the girl, crying, asks: "Where was my cousin?" And the mother, anxious, replied: "Do not be sad, honey ... do not cry! It is well ... she became a star and will forever shine in the sky. At night we go to the window and we see it. "At this time the girl learned two new concepts:

1. We must express our sorrow for the death of someone.

2. Who dies star turns, freezes and glows at night. No jokes, no chocolate cake, or the mother's hugs. It's all over. Left only the glow in the dark night ...

Philippe Aries, French historian specializing in the medieval West tells us that in the past, death was a public event and social. Therefore, part of everyone's life, from everyday life, something to be thought reflected elaborate. At that time the men who perished due to disease or war, knew the path of death itself - the last breath was expected in the bed at an event organized by the previously moribund. The family participated actively in the death of his family, the rituals were met with expressions of sadness and pain, even by children.

The dying man had a right to die among the most significant, was seen, and had, therefore, what we call a 'dignified death' for closing cycles, talk about their desires, their desires - if you had time for that.

In medieval times, the terrible death was sudden, as in this situation it was difficult if not impossible, the tributes (Paiva, 2011). We lived an intense and deep guiltless representation of death - death was domesticated, familiar, almost staged. Friends and relatives of the dead gathered to assist you in your last hour - "For centuries death was a public spectacle that no one would think to evade" (Ariès, 2003, p.22). 

Talk about the death today, it's something frightened, old-fashioned

People recognized the death of himself. However, it has become. From the late eighteenth century on death became the 'death of another.' Was seen as a violation, a breach, a failure, an interdict, and unable to stop it, we decided to silence her. We put it on the outside of life, something to be hidden, camouflaged. So, talk about death, today, is something ugly, fearful, old-fashioned. On the other hand, there is a trivialization of death. Children receive games where they kill people and that, paradoxically, gain more lives. On TV documentaries show many types of deaths, all with an appeal of spectacle, a parade of despair of others.

Why does this happen? At what point we start to hide and deny the next death to us and trivialize the social context? When did we decide it would be best to hospitalize the patient for him to die far from home and, in most cases, with only one attendant at the bedside, while we lost, scared, with images on TV and in newspapers? Why are we so afraid to talk about the inevitable, leaving many to think about possibilities?

To better understand the present, we must turn our eyes a little to the past. In the nineteenth century, after the advent of the Enlightenment, with its innovative ideas, there is a movement dubbed positivism, conceived by the French sociologist Auguste Comte. In these new times, the only acceptable form of knowledge, were born from sciences-called 'natural', through empirical observations. He started the era for the world of the intellect, as opposed to theological rules of the medieval era. Only through the use of reason a man could approach the truth. There would be, according to this new way of thinking, another way to do it. Then, based on medical sciences, where good was clean, hygienic, pure, healthy, began a movement of social hygiene, where death becomes unthinkable for reporting a failure of science, the good, the healthy. Death is seen as an error, a disorder, something dirty that should be hidden.

In the twentieth century, hospitalization of the terminally ill and futility¹ became common practices. And it is.

Today, we continue to avoid talking about death, afraid that she come and take us away. We are afraid to feel the anguish of our own finitude, so we decided that we need not comment on that.

And among the Spiritualists, as is talking about death? For us, death concerns only the body, but even so, even though this blessing that is life after life, many spiritualists continue answering questions about death much like the mother of our history: "Heavens! Turn this mouth over there. "Few accept this possibility with equanimity, accepting that this is an inevitable reality and we must reflect on it. Few say, "We may have to leave today, really, so you better organize ourselves every day to this." 

It is urgent to take the topic of death for schools 

Another aspect to be noted is the perception of unpreparedness that health professionals, in general, have to deal with the phenomenon of death². During the period of his master, Dr. Lucélia Paiva, acting clinical psychologist, and educational hospital, faced with this reality. Professionals reported their unpreparedness in matters of death, which caused great distress - and worst - an anguish denied, not spoken, not shared and therefore not elaborated. The protection of these professionals often is isolation, a psychic distance, for the purpose of shielding emotional - what 'protects' losses, making them, however, little humanized. "The exclusion of emotions, sometimes it is transformed through rationalization, a scientific technique, apparently necessary for the proper performance of work. We are talking about the alleged "neutrality," which justifies the lack of relationship with the patient, protecting the professional face of suffering the death of another. However, this phenomenon also takes you away from the life and consciousness of their mortality. "(Quintana, 2009). It was for this reason that in his doctoral thesis, Dr. Lucélia launched a new look at these issues, indicating the urgency of bringing the topic of death for schools, children have to understand that we need to have contact with this reality, according to our age group in a specific language within a context where the child can express their doubts, their fears and anxieties, receiving in return the information you need, welcome to move forward, stronger to account for over of his life, loss of so many situations that will certainly happen. Armed with these tools may, in due course, choose their professions so that, aware of the challenges associated with, these are not a source of great anguish, while his performance in the world can be more effective, more complete, more humane .

But how can we talk about death with children, if this issue causes us much pain, so much suffering? How can we pass concepts, allowing reflections, associated with so much anxiety?

Dr. Paiva Lucélia proposes in his book The Art of Speaking of death for children, children's literature that we use to approach this subject. Citing Torres (1999), states that "to talk about death with children, it is important to use a simple, straightforward language with them, as well as information about the real death, because they have a literal understanding of language." He adds: "(...) The stories stimulate the imagination and help children to work with things that cannot handle. She puts her own emotions in history. "(Paiva, 2011). We, Spiritualists, we are able to help them deal with these issues early on, using the literary devices, the host, listening comprehension, coupled with the knowledge gained from the doctrine that we embrace. 

Second Jesus, those who cling to life to lose 

Herculano Pires, the spiritist philosopher in his book Education for Death, shows how human beings should be educated, not only for this life, but also preparing, through its intellectual and moral, for the next stocks within the long evolutionary process. Right in the introduction to the work we read that "to the materialists, the title 'Education for Death' means 'Education for Nothing.' For that, however, that glimpse of the immortality of the soul, this title becomes great because he understands that death is nothing more than the end of a material experience and a return to free life of the Spirit. "Later in the first paragraph of the first chapter, the author makes clear the purpose of his writings: "I will lay me down to sleep. But I can die in their sleep. I'm fine, I have no particular reason to think about death at this time. Not to wish it. But death neither isn’t an option nor a possibility. It is a certainty. When the jury of Athens sentenced Socrates to death rather than give you a prize, his wife went to prison distraught, crying out: "Socrates, the judges condemned you to death." The philosopher replied calmly: "They also condemned already." The woman insisted in his despair: "But it is an unjust sentence." And he asked: "Would you rather be fair?". The serenity of Socrates was the product of an educational process: Education for Death. Interestingly, in our time just take care of Education for Life. We forget that we live to die. Death is our inevitable end. However, she usually arrived without the least preparation. "(Pires, 1996).

The education for death would therefore be an "educational process that tends to set the students the reality of life, which is not only live but also in existing and transcend." (Pires, 1996). It has nothing to do with knowing how to conquer space in the sky. Nor is it to prepare only for the last time, but, aware of our finitude, reflect on the life we lead, we need to do, where and how we want to go ... All this is fundamentally an education which leads to death in the form of being in the world in education for life. What's more to life than this life, and so on.

That is why Jesus taught that those who cling to their lives to lose, and lose that, indeed, win. (Mark 8:35). Only when we realize that we need to make life and that we need, now, working for our transcendence is that we have 'abundant life', i.e. the true life, the life of the Spirit - our very existence.

The many deaths in a life

So far we have discussed, albeit superficially, the need to talk about physical death - the vitae in extremis. But we humans are driven to evolve through a thousand deaths in a single existence, a parade of cycles, processes that begin and end, becoming more experienced, more mature, according to our form of coping in response to these submissions.

At conception, although many do show that there begins a new life, we can say that, concomitantly, there was one death - the end of one phase to the immortal Spirit, where he has to give up his real home to go into the dense claws of the physical world, losing its spiritual clarity to pass the act in thick mist, greatly reducing their perception of greater reality. In many cases only the oblivion of the past allows a less traumatic to realign reincarnating.

(This article will be completed in the next edition of this magazine.)