Spiritualists

He is of the opinion that to pay much attention to persons who are imbued with spiritualistic ideas is rather useless, because what they have thought it has a germ of truth, has much of personal imagination added to it. Moreover, when after much effort they become Bahá’ís, they are reluctant to turn a completely new sheet in their life and begin to conceive Bahá’í ideals in spiritualistic terms. There are thousands of other pure souls who are more ready for the teachings and who would accept it unreservedly. So we had better concentrate our attention upon them. The Cause everywhere has suffered from spiritualists with psychic pretended powers, and it is high time to take a step along that line.

It is clear that what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi had in mind when warning the believers against meddling with psychic forces were those that spiritualists believe come from a deliberate effort on the part of individuals to establish communication with the departed.