From the introductory: Spiritualism, and Its General Teachings. Man, a thinking, reasoning, and morally responsible being, is the crowning glory of God. He is furthermore a trinity in structure, made up of the soul, of a spiritual and of an earthly body. The soul, the conscious innermost of man, is a potentialized portion of the deific life, incarnated in the material body for a more potent individualization, and for necessary experiences in the realm of matter. Death, just as natural in a ripe old age as birth, is the severing of the co-partnership existing between the spiritual and the earthly body. Man is naturally a religious being, and the seals of his manhood are consciousness and intuition, reason and aspiration. And further, man desires to live again; desires to meet his friends in the higher life; desires to know and love them, and with them progress through eternity.