Maurício Mancini:

“We learn a lot from young people”

A University Teacher tells us his valuable experience of working with young people, in and out of the spiritist movement

O Consolador: Your book Good Night Messages (Mensagens de Boa Noite) has just been published.  It’s based on your experience with students at University. Can you please tell us more about it? 

In fact, two books were just published based on this intense exchange I have with young people from the spiritist movement within the States of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. On top of this social contact with youth, I also have daily conversations with young students from Bachelors and Masters Degrees at the University. 

As time went by, I realized all young people I met were looking for affection, attention, someone to listen to them and understand them. It didn’t matter if they came from different parts of the country in order to pursue a degree or develop activities in spiritist centre. They were all looking for the same. I realized they were not looking for someone to go to parties or have fun with but for paternal and maternal figures who could give them some affection since most of them didn’t have that from their homes. When I listened to their conversations, shared their happiness and sadness, I found the source of information for the texts that are part of these books. 

O Consolador: How did you manage to get this level of interaction with your students? 

I had to allow myself time in order to change my feelings from being the classic Chemical Engineer Professor to the friend and father who teaches and learns at the same time. It is challenging to leave aside the classical behavior, which we are all used to. Most of the Professors keep some distance from the students and are always very defensive, as if they know everything and the pupil needs to learn what the Masters have to teach.   

The type of relationship I aim to have with my students is one where we are all people; human beings, not a relationship between a learning machine and a teaching machine. That might be the reason why I remain available for them to talk to me as equals and open up, even though I look a bit older. Even if I have learned some more lessons than they have, I will always be an eternal student of life. This works with most students. That’s how I am: an eternal student of life. 

O Consolador: What do you consider to be the reason why your texts are well-accepted? Isn’t there resistence from young people towards this topic? 

People are people. No matter which environment they are, from the simplest and to the most academic one. People have feelings and their anxieties control their lives much more than reasoning. The texts are well-accepted because they talk about day-to-day queries, which are common to us all, but with no closed solutions. It shows, according to Jesus’ teachings, we are responsible for our sadness and/or happiness in life. The texts talk about feelings and show that the challenges of life, which young people go through, do not only happen to them. It also estates they are capable of constructing a better path to live. Young people enjoy spiritualistic themes since most of them are feeling empty, even though having access to all facilities modern life offers them.   

They look for something else: something that will make them feel absolute, complete. They do not want to feel like machines of a competitive system, with no feelings; no love. 

O Consolador: Is the interaction with the public very intense in your talks? What type of dynamics do you use to make your talks more interesting? 

I usually do not use other sources rather than eloquence, the art of public speaking. Time has helped me to instigate the minds of the audience. I use stories to illustrate some of the ideas and try to close it emphasizing the value of good feelings. I also focus on the capacity we all have to do good things, and reinforce that if we want to be happy, the achievement is down to each us and we should start immediately. During seminars, I tend to use audio-visual resources since it usually lasts for a longer period and I need to examine carefully the topics discussed. In essence, what attracts the audience is empathy, brightness of the eye, a nice smile, happiness and immense gratitude. I am always grateful for God letting me be there in the talk/seminar and have the opportunity to build something new. We need to build good things rather than destroy, since we all have destroyed in passed incarnations. 

O Consolador: Do you keep writing messages? What is your inspiration for it? 

Yes, I keep writing them but not daily anymore, as I did for 18 months. At that time, this daily work generated 3 books which are not yet published, plus Good Night Messages (Mensagens de Boa Noite), and Good Night Parables (Parábolas de Boa Noite). Some times new unpublished messages come up to my mind. Since I weekly review all messages that are part of the book Good Night Parables (Parábolas de Boa Noite), which was first edited in 2007, I might add them to it. 

In regards to inspiration, I could say that there is always a trigger that follows the construction of these messages. Normally the trigger could be a conversation with my students, with the young people from the spiritist movement or a personal issue. From the initial idea I look for inspiration from our Benefactors of the Spiritual World. Even though they don’t sign the messages, they are typing it with me since sometimes I am only conscious about what was written after the text is ready. I would like to mention the constant help I have from Brother Assis and Sister Rosália, who are spiritual friends that have been by my side for more than 25 years. 

O Consolador: What about the book Good Night Parables (Parábolas de Boa Noite), which should be published in 2009? 

Good Night Parables (Parábolas de Boa Noite) will be re-edited in 2009 by the Editor Mythos. It will have two new parables added to it. This book has a different style from Good Night Messages (Mensagens de Boa Noite), which brings us direct and objective messages.  

On the other hand, Good Night Parables (Parábolas de Boa Noite) has a collection of short stories. These parables use characters and dialogs to illustrate the lessons it provides us with. It will have 70 short parables in total, and the inspiration for writing them have been my students, young spiritists and the spirits Brother Assis and Sister Rosália. The topics described in the book attract young people of all ages: failed relationships, friendships, the hard task between TO HAVE and TO BE, etc. In some of these parables, I expressed my paternal sentiment, since I have for my students and the young spiritists the same love I have for my own biological children. 

O Consolador: What type of experience can be learned from being familiar with young people? 

Those of us who isolate or neglect to have a close relationship with youth are condemned to a very sad old age. Life requires constant learning. We spend the first years of our existence enjoying the energies we have to explore the world around us and to learn at the expense of our own experiences. When we get to a more mature age, our energy for this learning adventure decreases. We will all be wise if we keep learning from young people. Therefore, if I could take a personal lesson from this close relationship with youth would be that new generations always seem better, more determined to learn and grown then mine or even the previous generations. If I am sure we will have a better and happier world in the future, I learned it by observing these young people. They seem to be learning something from me, but they are teaching me much more. I learned with them the concrete possibility of being HAPPY FOR BEING ALIVE.  

O Consolador: Do think the ideas of Spiritism are well accepted by young people who are not spiritists? 

Spiritist ideas are well accepted by young people. They are always up-to-date and bring rational and consoling answers to their immediate questionings. Therefore, we can find some young people averse to spiritist ideas. These youth come from families who have prejudice against the Doctrine or maybe the materialistic inheritance of that family has already compromised their behavior.  

It can be noted a lack of young people at youth spiritists, at spiritist centers. The problem is not with youth or with the Spiritist Doctrine, but with the way we use to present these ideas to young people. They like to be challenged, to be lead to think. They never ‘swallow’ information without digesting it first, through reasoning or feelings. 

O Consolador: Has virtual communication been helping the expansion of spiritist ideas? 

All communication resources, such as Internet and other digital and virtual communication tools, could be productive if well used. We need to adapt it so the message becomes accessible to a bigger audience, but be careful with the content of the transmitted messages. Texts with no consistency should not be used to attract the public. I think these communication resources should be used to attract the audience for a serious and methodological study of Spiritist Doctrine. 

Therefore, if we can not do it within our spiritist centers, we can not demand from virtual communication a serious and methodological study of Spiritist Doctrine. Let’s stay aware of this, and use this tool in the right way to disclose Spiritism.  

O Consolador: Can you please tell us more about the most remarkable experience within your professional life and within your work as spiritist? 

In 2001, I taught one discipline for 1st year students of Chemical Engineer and Food Engineer at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. On the first day of class, I distributed a questionnaire for the students. It asked them to talk a bit about themselves and I even left a message at the end talking about confidence; that they were all able to achieve all dreams they had. I asked them to keep this phrase and, if they found it important, to give it back to me at their graduation. 

Five years later, in the middle of the graduation ceremony, a group of students came to the stage in order to receive homage. After the formalities this occasion involved, they stopped everything and asked me to stay at the stage. They read that phrase I gave them on the first day of class for the entire audience and gave it back to me. Wow! That’s when I found out I don’t suffer from any heart diseases! 

Every time a young person approaches me very afflict, needy and our conversation helps them feel better and more confident, I feel grateful. I feel like living one of the experiences Abraham Maslow talks about. He was an American psychologist who created the concept of hierarchy of human needs, and is considered to be the father of humanistic psychology. I feel like a father to each young person who I have the opportunity to meet and this is remarkably stimulating in my life.  

O Consolador: Can you please give us your final words? 

I know my books can reach a big audience, since the messages bring consolations for the sufferings related to the challenges in modern life. Therefore, they were originally designed for young people. This was done in purpose, since I can see in this generation the power to create a better world. Young people should not be strived against, hindered or transformed into a copy of ourselves.  

We need to learn from them, involve them with love, respect for their individualities, because they are spirits who can transform this world into something better.  I would like to finish this interview by mentioning Khalil Gibran. This Lebanese-American author talks to us about children: 

 “You can make an effort to be like them, but don’t try to make them be like you because life doesn’t walk backwards and doesn’t delay in the past. You are arcs, from which your children are thrown like living arrows. (…) Let your bending from the Archer’s hand be your happiness, because since He loves the arrow that flies, he also loves the arc that remains stable.” (The Prophet Gibran Khalil Gibran)