Does the World Need the Holy Spirit Even More than (Take This in the Right Way) Jesus?

So Grace and I were talking to a woman the other day (along with one of you) who was completely intrigued that she might be able to get to know God the way one gets to know a friend.  She'd never heard of such a thing.  How would she get started?

Grace started describing her own journey of learning to hear God's voice and how that led to her discovering the Holy Spirit.  The woman was completely on board.  Blundering into the conversation, I mentioned that the woman might enjoy a structured look at exactly this question by way of the Seek Course, though I said that I should mention that Seek looks at these questions from a perspective of Jesus.  That proved to be a non-starter and, after an appropriately uncomfortable pause, the woman turned back to Grace, the person who was actually offering her useful spiritual counsel.

This got Grace and me thinking.  I've been reading my friend Carl Medearis' engaging new book Speaking of Jesus (our next podcast will be with Carl), and Carl pummels away at one main point--which I'm sure I'll clumsily summarize as: Christianity stinks and is not worth defending in any way, but Jesus has something to offer anyone on earth.  But our conversation with this woman would take a different tack: the Holy Spirit has something to offer anyone, from any religious or nonrelgious tradition on earth--a two-way connection with the God of the universe who will then, himself, take on the heavy lifting of redirecting the person praying towards what's actually good and real and central in the universe.  (And, for the record, in my world this is Jesus.)  But it's this living connection which holds all promise.  All people on earth already want this and by and large have no idea how to pursue it.  The Holy Spirit is the answer.

I'm pondering this.  I'm intrigued.  I wonder both if this is a home-run of an insight and if it's lacking in some key way I can't fully articulate (perhaps that lack has something to do with Jesus).

But what do you think?  Does the world need the Holy Spirit even more than (hoping not to be struck by lightning as I type this) it needs Jesus?  (At least as a starting point.)