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FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY

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Spirits temporarily assume a perishable physical body, the death of which restores them to liberty.
Among the different kinds of physical beings on Earth, God has chosen the human species for the incarnation of spirits who have arrived at a certain degree of development. This characteristic gives the human species an ethical and intellectual advantage over other living species.
The soul is an incarnate spirit, the body its material envelope.

Human beings consist of the following: 1) a body, or physical being, similar to that belonging to animals and animated by the same vital principle; 2) a soul, an immaterial spirit incarnated in the body; 3) an intermediate link which unites the soul and body.
Human beings have, accordingly, two natures: animal and spiritual. Through the body, humans participate in the nature of animals, with which they share instincts. Through the soul, they participate in the nature of the spirits.
A link, known as the perispirit (or spiritual body), unites the body and the spirit. It is a semi-material envelope, as opposed to the fully material envelope of the body. At death, the spirit sheds the physical body, the grosser of the two, but preserves the perispirit, or spiritual body. The perispirit constitutes, then, an ethereal body that the spirit can render visible, or even tangible, as in the case of spirit-sightings.
A spirit is not, therefore, an abstract being, a concept of thought. Rather, it is a real and well-defined entity that, in certain situations, can be perceived by sight, hearing, and touch.