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Spiritualism and Spiritism

 

FOR new ideas new words are needed, in order to secure clearness of language by avoiding
the confusion inseparable from the employment of the same term for expressing different
meanings. The words spiritual, spiritualist, spiritualism, have a definite acceptation; to give
them a new one, in order to apply them to the doctrine set forth by spirits, would be to
multiply the causes of amphibology, already so numerous.

Strictly speaking, Spiritualism is the opposite of Materialism; every one is a Spiritualist who believes that there is in him
something more than matter, but it does not follow that he believes in the existence of spirits,
or in their communication with the visible world. Instead, therefore, of the words
SPIRITUAL SPIRITUALISM, we employ, to designate this latter belief, the words
SPIRITIST, SPIRITISM, which, by their form, indicate their origin and radical meaning, and
have thus the advantage of being perfectly intelligible; and we reserve the words spiritualism,
spiritualist, for the expression of the meaning attached to them by common acceptation. We
say, then, that the fundamental principle of the spiritist theory, or Spiritism, is the relation of
the material world with spirits, or the beings of the invisible world ; and we designate the
adherents of the spiritist theory as spiritists.

 


In a special sense, "THE SPIRITS’ BOOK" contains the doctrine or theory of spiritism; in a
general sense, it appertains to the spiritualist school, of which it presents one of the phases. It
is for this reason that we have inscribed the words Spiritualist Philosophy on its title-page.

Extracted from the Introduction section of The Spirit's Book.