Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

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MODERN SPIRITISM
Unseen that are revealed to us in Scripture. It
may be that by this and similar usage the two expressions
will gradually become so distinct that the
one will mean almost the reverse of the other.
True and False Gnosis
The two, indeed, constitute largely the false and
true "ywoais": of which, in early days, the Gnostic
heresy was the exponent of the former, and
Christianity of the latter. The gospel of St. John
was undoubtedly written partly to combat the
former.
It requires no extreme stretch of imagination to
see much in Spiritism that recalls the tenets of
Gnosticism; far easier, indeed, than to see what it
has in common with Christianity.
Sir A. Conan Doyle, who arduously endeavours to
link Spiritism with, at any rate, some fragments of
Christianity, says that the early Church was saturated
with Spiritism. If he means the very early Church, it
was with the true Spiritualism that it was saturated;
if he means that of even one or two centuries later,
it is true, for it soon fell into all sorts of heresies.
The Christian faith is not founded, however, on the
early Church, but on the Bible. * Spiritualism, as I use
the word, is then the essence and doctrine of Scripture,
of Christian philosophy, and of truth. In his
book he also says, in his new role of apostle of "The
New Revelation," that "no religion upon earth has
* It is useless to say that it was the early Church that gave
Christians their Bible. It is simply not true. It was given by
God alone, and our Bible was everywhere already circulating
as the Word of God amongst Christians when the early Church
ratified their decision by its authority.