Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

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SPIRITISM AND CHRISTIANITY 215
any advantage over' another, but that character
and refinement are everything. Every form may
have a purpose for somebody."
Opposed to this the Rev. F. Fielding Quid, a
Spiritist, says: "No one has a right to call himself
a Christian unless he believes in the Divinity of
Jesus Christ. On the truth of our Lord's Divinity
the Church is erected. It is upon that rock that
Modern Spiritism is in imminent danger of being
shipwrecked. In the Spiritist hymn-book and
prayers the name of Jesus is omitted, and the motto
of many is 'Every man his own saviour.'
Sir A. Conan Doyle,* however, believes that the
Churches must accept the dogmas of Spiritism or
perish.
Spirit and Soul
I have used, largely, the word "psychic" on its
current Spiritist usage of "spiritual," which, really
and critically, it does not connote at all.
One of the great defects of Spiritism scientifically
is that it does not adequately, if at all, distinguish
between irvevna (pneuma), spirit and ^UXTJ (psuche),
soul. It is the latter which may be associated
after death with a bodily form (as seen in apparitions).
The former is without form, and is that
which, in the blessed dead, "departs to be with
Christ, which is very far (lit. ) better, " and which at
the resurrection (a fact totally ignored in Spiritism)
will be clothed (but not at death, as all Spiritists
believe) with its spiritual body.
To misuse these two words, then, causes con-
* See British Weekly for July, 1919.