Marcos Paterra: 

“The inclusion of children with learning disability in the
activities of Spiritist Centres
is not unrealistic” 

The well-known Spiritist researcher and educator talks about the matter of including children with learning disability in the
activities of Spiritist Centres

 

	Marcos Paterra (photo), is a Spiritist educator, speaker and writer in João Pessoa, capital of Brazil’s Paraíba state. In this interview he talks about the matter of how to include children with learning disability in the activities of Spiritist Centres.
As an educator and Spiritist, what is your assessment of the possibilities of including children with learning disabilities and other forms of disability in the activities of Spiritist institutions?

Most Spiritist Centres still lack the infrastructure and the trained personnel to deal with the many types of disability. Including children with learning disability and other forms of disability, either in schools or Spiritist Groups, is for many unrealistic. But I feel encouraged by the example of institutions that make the necessary changes to receive disabled people. It is a positive move, but proper inclusion is one step ahead. If you have a son with autism, or hearing problems or Down Syndrome, what do you do? Either you exclude him or you take him to one of the groups that will accept him. 

Are you saying then that inclusion is unrealistic? 

No. But… Inclusion is based in several concepts. I can mention three here that are relevant for children:

1. The child must feel it is part of a group.

2. The child must have friends and meaningful social relations with their pears, or it must feel he or she is giving a valuable contribution to the group.

3. Finally, the child must be treated with equality, affection and respect as an individual.

It is not enough to create ramps for wheel chair access or special classes for children with learning disabilities. Social inclusion will not take place if these three points are ignored. 

Is there proper inclusion of disabled children in courses for children at Brazilian Spiritist Centres? 

One of the major challenges Spiritst organisations are facing in Brazil at the moment is how to include children with any form of disability. In a desperate effort to help, Spiritist Centres may end up doing more harm than good. Children may end up with their self-confidence even more damaged; they may lose motivation and react by acting with indiscipline, anger or aggression, as they feel they are not capable of learning. We need to set up an Education Project adapted to the new conditions and also identify they challenges faced by those pupils and act upon them. 

What is the impact of the current system, with children being taught the Gospel without the proper inclusion of those with disabilities? 

We live in a world built on ideas of eugenics, where whoever is different or disabled must be “excluded”. In the past few years, we have seen in Brazil huge campaigns to legalise abortion, euthanasia and to undermine any serious attempts of inclusion. We need, thus, to create an education system that embraces inclusion. To evangelise means to spread the good news. That must be done taking into account the love of Jesus for all of us, without discriminating against sex or disabilities. I go even further. I believe the courses for young Spiritists prepared and approved by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation should include the works of authors such as J. Herculano Pires, Ernesto Bozzano, Bezerra de Menezes and Adenauer de Novaes on disabilities. We, Spiritists, should open our organisations to inclusion of all forms of disability, otherwise we would be behaving like hypocrites and forming people with a eugenic mentality. 

Would you say that children with some form of disability or learning difficulty, such as autism, are suffering from Spiritual obsession? 

Bezerra de Menezes, in his book Loucura e Obsessão, written by the medium, Divaldo Franco, says that autism as well as other mental and illnesses take place in Spirits who had some form of power in previous lives and did not know how to make proper use of that power. They abused their power, their influence, leadership etc., very often using it only for their own profit. The Spiritist psychologist, Adenáuer de Novais, says: “There are children who so strongly reject their current incarnation, their family members, the group and place to where they have returned that they shut themselves up from reality. The Spirit prefers to continue living in the past. Cases like that may lead to autism”.

As well as suffering with the “self-obsession”, the “children with syndromes” also attract enemies from the past who come to persecute them, to “obsess” them. 

We would like to thank you for this interview and ask you to share your final thoughts with us. 

Thank you very much for this opportunity. I would like to stress that “inclusion” is not only for people with disabilities, but also for different ethnic groups, sexual options and social and religion differences. As we have learned in Spiritism, the body is only the carcass the Spirit uses to live in and progress.

Allan Kardec said in Genesis (Chapter I, item 36 ): “With belief in reincarnation, the prejudices of race and castes fall dead, as the same Spirit can be reborn rich or poor, lord or beggar, master or subordinate, free or enslaved, man or woman”.