Difference between revisions of "Animism" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
Line 19: Line 19:
 
More commonly perhaps than these aforementioned phenomena, is the importance of the daily period of [[sleep]] in animistic traditions. The frequent fitful and incoherent ideas and images included within dreams, is interpreted in many cultures to illustrate the fact that the soul journies forth while the body rests. [[Dreams]] are sometimes explained in animist cultures as journeys performed by the sleeper, or else as visits paid to the sleeper by other persons, animals or objects. [[Hallucinations]] may also have contributed to this interpretation, and the animistic theory in general. Seeing the [[phantasm]]ic figures of friends at the moment when they were, whether at the point of death or in good health, many miles distant, may have led people to the dualistic separation of soul and body that is common within animism. But hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living. From the reappearance of dead friends or enemies, primitive man was led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man, which survived the dissolution of the body. The soul was conceived to be a facsimile of the body, sometimes no less material, sometimes more subtle but yet material, sometimes altogether impalpable and intangible. If the phenomena of dreams were of such great importance for the development of animism, the belief expanded into a general [[philosophy]] of [[nature]]. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams, and therefore it is possible that animists concluded that these entities also had souls.  
 
More commonly perhaps than these aforementioned phenomena, is the importance of the daily period of [[sleep]] in animistic traditions. The frequent fitful and incoherent ideas and images included within dreams, is interpreted in many cultures to illustrate the fact that the soul journies forth while the body rests. [[Dreams]] are sometimes explained in animist cultures as journeys performed by the sleeper, or else as visits paid to the sleeper by other persons, animals or objects. [[Hallucinations]] may also have contributed to this interpretation, and the animistic theory in general. Seeing the [[phantasm]]ic figures of friends at the moment when they were, whether at the point of death or in good health, many miles distant, may have led people to the dualistic separation of soul and body that is common within animism. But hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living. From the reappearance of dead friends or enemies, primitive man was led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man, which survived the dissolution of the body. The soul was conceived to be a facsimile of the body, sometimes no less material, sometimes more subtle but yet material, sometimes altogether impalpable and intangible. If the phenomena of dreams were of such great importance for the development of animism, the belief expanded into a general [[philosophy]] of [[nature]]. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams, and therefore it is possible that animists concluded that these entities also had souls.  
  
Beside the doctrine of separable souls with which we have so far been concerned exists the animist belief in a great host of unattached spirits. These are not immanent souls that have become detached from their abodes, but have instead every appearance of independent spirits. These spirits are, at least at first, primarily considered malevolent. Along with them we find the conception that spirits of the dead as hostile beings. At a later stage the spirits of dead kinsmen are no longer unfriendly, nor yet are they all non-human spirits. As [[fetish]]es, [[nagual]]s, [[familiar spirit]]s, gods or [[demi-gods]] (see also [[demonology]]), they enter into relations with man. On the other hand there still subsists a belief in innumerable evil spirits, which manifest themselves in the phenomena of [[possession]], [[lycanthropy]], disease, and so on. The fear of evil spirits has given rise to ceremonies of expulsion of evils, designed to banish these entities from the community.
+
Beside the doctrine of separable souls with which we have so far been concerned exists the animist belief in a great host of unattached spirits. These are not immanent souls that have become detached from their abodes, but have instead every appearance of independent spirits. These spirits are, at least at first, primarily considered malevolent. These spirits often take monstrous or animalistic forms.  For example, among the Objiwa people of Minnesota and Ontario, a great number of evil spirits existed among the esteemed ones: monsters, ghosts, and most notably the Wendigo, an ogre which consumed human flesh and was said to cause psychosis. Typically, these spirits manifest themselves in the phenomena of [[possession]], lycanthropy, disease, and so on. Along with such conceptions of spiritual evil we also find the idea that spirits of the dead can also be hostile beings, at least at first. After extended durations of time, the spirits of dead kinsmen are no longer seen as unfriendly, nor yet are they all non-human spirits. As [[fetish]]es, [[nagual]]s, [[familiar spirit]]s, gods or [[demi-gods]], they enter into relations with man. The fear of evil spirits has given rise to ceremonies of expulsion of evils, designed to banish these entities from the community.
  
 
===Shamanism===  
 
===Shamanism===  

Revision as of 16:59, 18 May 2006

Animism, (from the latin animus, or anima, meaning mind or soul), generally refers to belief in numerous spiritual beings. Additionally, it is extended to include the belief that personalized, supernatural beings (or souls) endowed with reason, intelligence and volition inhabit ordinary objects as well as animate beings, and govern their existence. More simply, the belief is that "everything is alive", "everything is conscious" or else that "everything has a soul". The term has been further extended to refer to a belief that the natural world is a community of living personas, only some of whom are human. "Animism" has also been used in academia to refer to the types of cultures in which (or philosophies by which) these animists live, including the wider community of "persons" (human, rock, plant, animal, bird, ancestral, etc.) with whom they live. While the term "animism" refers to a broad range of spiritual beliefs, many of which are still extant within human cultures today, it does not denote any particular religious creed or doctrine. The most common feature of animist religions is their attention to particulars, evident in the number and variety of spirits they recognize, in contrast to the all-inclusive universalism of monotheistic, pantheistic and panentheistic traditions. Furthermore, animist spirituality in general is focused more upon satisfying practical urgencies, such as food, water, and illness, rather than solving metaphysical quandaries.

Animism as a Category of Religion

The term "Animism" was first introduced to academic discourse by anthropologist, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his 1871 book, Primitive Culture. Tylor used the term to refer specifically to belief in spirits, that is, the belief in any entity described as having a mystical, supernatural, or non-empirical nature. Animist thought, Tylor proposed, was religion in its most inchoate form and served simply as a starting point for human religious development. That is, so-called "primitive" cultures such as the remaining hunter-gatherers upheld this superstitious belief that everything had a soul, reflecting their supposedly low level of technological development. Originally, these non-Western societies relied on animism to explain the occurence of certain events and processes. However, as technological thought progressed, so too did explanations for events in the physical world. As societies advanced from savagery to stages of barbarism and eventually modern civilization, Tylor believed that they subsequently inherited more complex beliefs, such as polydaemonism or polytheism and eventually the supposed pinnacles of religious thought, monotheism or else atheism. At the time that Tylor wrote, this theory was politically radical because it made the claim that non-Western peoples and in particular, non-Christian "heathens", do in fact have religion. Tylor's use of the term animism was indubitably pejorative, referring to what he conceived as an inferior form of religion, and this usage has since been widely rejected along with his overall theory of religious evolution. The theory reflected, at best, an attempt to make societal development consonant with the development of species described by Charles Darwin. Today the term animism is used with more respect and sensitivity to the obvious viability of tribal peoples and their spiritual beliefs. It is now commonly accepted that religious beliefs function emotionally and socially, rather than purely for the purpose of intellectual explanation, illustrative of the greater problem that Tylor had imposed a Western view of religion upon the tribal peoples he studied.

Many thinkers do not categorize animism as a form of religion at all. They argue that animism is in the first instance an explanation of phenomena rather than an attitude of mind toward the cause of them. Thus, animistic thought is more philosophical rather than strictly religion. The term may, however, be conveniently used to describe a quasi-religious practice in which people endeavour to set up relations between themselves and the unseen powers, conceived as spirits, but differing in many particulars from the gods of polytheism. While religion implied a sense of humility within humans before the Gods, anthropologist Sir James G. Frazer, claimed that animism involved an attempt to gain temporary ascendancy over spiritual forces through magic. Animism could hardly be categorized as religion, then, since it was primarily a utilitarian act for personal and societal gain. Further, unlike the polytheistic gods, animistic spiritual entities are more general and functional in their character, without a deeply developed mythology. This stage of religion is well illustrated by the Native American custom of offering sacrifice to certain rocks, or whirlpools, or to the indwelling spirits connected with them. The rite is only performed in the neighbourhood of the object, and is not intended to secure any benefits beyond a safe passage past the object in question. The spirit to be propitiated has a purely local sphere of influence, and powers of a very limited nature when compared to those of the polytheist God. Animistic in many of their features too are the temporary gods of fetishism, naguals or familiars, genii and even the dead who receive a cult. With the belief in more departmental gods comes the practice of polytheism, and henceforth what is considered by some to be full-fledged religious thought. Such religious beliefs are viewed as superceding the elemental spirits of the animist worldview. In contrast, those who argue that animism is a religion place focus upon the fact that worship is directed toward the spirits identified by the animist. Even after polytheist religious movements take effect, the elemental spirits may still be conceived of "lesser gods" while receiving this worship. Their help and intervention is sought, sacrifices are made, and their instructions received through divination are obeyed. Thus, these thinkers proceed to claim that animism embodies the ritualistic features of religion, and so should be considered as such.

Common Features of Animism

Existence of Souls or Spirits

The core feature of animistic thought is the belief in souls or spirits, that is, some kind of metaphysical entity conceived to be the life-source of human beings, animals, plants and even non-living objects and phenomena alike. For animistic cultures, existence of such entities with operational and volitional qualities provide explanations for the inumberable changes in the external world. Numerous examples of such entities can be found in human cultures. In Tasmania, North and South America and classical Europe is found the conception that the soul — σκιά, umbra — is identical with the shadow of a person. Similarly, among the Basutus of Lesotho it is held that a man walking by the brink of a river may lose his life if his shadow falls on the water, since a crocodile may seize his soul and draw him into the current. More familiar to Europeans is the connection between the soul and the breath. This identification is found both in Indo-European and within the linguistic roots of the words in Semitic languages: In Latin we have spiritus, in Greek pneuma, and in Hebrew ruach. The idea is found extending to many other cultures in Australia, America and Asia.

Most animistic belief systems hold that the spirit survives physical death. In some instances, the spirit is believed to pass into a more leisurely world of abundant game and ever-ripe crops, while in other systems, such as that of the Navajo religion, the spirit remains on earth as a ghost, which may often become malignant. Still other systems combine these two beliefs, holding that the afterlife involves a journey to the spirit world upon which the soul must not be lost. This journey entails much wandering as a ghost. Funeral, mourning rituals, and ancestor worship performed by those surviving the deceased are often considered necessary for the completion of this journey. For some of the Native Americans and First Nations the Roman custom of receiving the breath of a dying man was no mere pious duty but a means of ensuring that his soul was successfully transferred to a new body. Other familiar conceptions identify the soul with the [[liver] or the heart, with the reflected figure outwardly visible in the pupil of the eye, and within the blood.

Although the soul is most often distinguished from the vital principles mentioned above, there are many cases in which a state of unconsciousness is explained as due to the absence of the soul. In South Australia wilyamarraba, a term which refers to the state of being without a soul, is also the term used for that which cannot be perceived with the senses. Similarly, the autohypnotic trance of the magician or shaman is attributed to their visit to distant regions of the netherworld, from which they bring back a prescriptive account of the discontents of the spirits. Similarly, sickness is often explained as occuring due to the absence of the soul, and measures are sometimes taken to lure back this vagrant spirit. In Chinese tradition, when a person is at the point of death their soul is believed to have left their body. Typically, the dying individual's coat is held up on a long bamboo pole while a priest endeavours to bring the departed spirit back into the coat by means of incantations. If the bamboo begins to turn round in the hands of the relative who is responsible for holding it, it is regarded as a sign that the soul of the patient has returned to their body.

More commonly perhaps than these aforementioned phenomena, is the importance of the daily period of sleep in animistic traditions. The frequent fitful and incoherent ideas and images included within dreams, is interpreted in many cultures to illustrate the fact that the soul journies forth while the body rests. Dreams are sometimes explained in animist cultures as journeys performed by the sleeper, or else as visits paid to the sleeper by other persons, animals or objects. Hallucinations may also have contributed to this interpretation, and the animistic theory in general. Seeing the phantasmic figures of friends at the moment when they were, whether at the point of death or in good health, many miles distant, may have led people to the dualistic separation of soul and body that is common within animism. But hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living. From the reappearance of dead friends or enemies, primitive man was led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man, which survived the dissolution of the body. The soul was conceived to be a facsimile of the body, sometimes no less material, sometimes more subtle but yet material, sometimes altogether impalpable and intangible. If the phenomena of dreams were of such great importance for the development of animism, the belief expanded into a general philosophy of nature. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams, and therefore it is possible that animists concluded that these entities also had souls.

Beside the doctrine of separable souls with which we have so far been concerned exists the animist belief in a great host of unattached spirits. These are not immanent souls that have become detached from their abodes, but have instead every appearance of independent spirits. These spirits are, at least at first, primarily considered malevolent. These spirits often take monstrous or animalistic forms. For example, among the Objiwa people of Minnesota and Ontario, a great number of evil spirits existed among the esteemed ones: monsters, ghosts, and most notably the Wendigo, an ogre which consumed human flesh and was said to cause psychosis. Typically, these spirits manifest themselves in the phenomena of possession, lycanthropy, disease, and so on. Along with such conceptions of spiritual evil we also find the idea that spirits of the dead can also be hostile beings, at least at first. After extended durations of time, the spirits of dead kinsmen are no longer seen as unfriendly, nor yet are they all non-human spirits. As fetishes, naguals, familiar spirits, gods or demi-gods, they enter into relations with man. The fear of evil spirits has given rise to ceremonies of expulsion of evils, designed to banish these entities from the community.

Shamanism

Because of the often malevolence of such spirits, as well as the various ills which can befall the individual soul or the community at large, the animist community almost always develops a system of spiritual healing, or shamanism. Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices that claim the ability to diagnose and cure human suffering and, in some societies, the ability to actually cause suffering. This is believed to be accomplished by traversing the axis mundi and becoming able to form a special relationship with the many spirits in the animist universe, usually in hopes of gaining control over them. Shamans have been credited with the ability to control the weather, divination, the interpretation of dreams, astral projection (including the ability to travel to upper and lower spiritual worlds). Usually, it is only certain individuals are called to these duties of the spiritual leader. Despite the equality of humans with regard to spirituality found in animist cultures, some clearly rise above the others, possessing powers greater than or external to the ordinary human experience. In Native American groups, for example, only the shaman has the power to mediate between the spirits and mortals, to talk with the souls on behalf of the living. Further, the shaman, male or female, was often of an extraordinary character, both in physical appearance and in acting talents. He or she would typically assume the roles of a mystic, poet, sage, healer of the sick, guardian of the tribe, and repository of stories. Those who did not possess the full range of these shamanistic attributes became simply "medicine men", and functioned exclusively as healers. To actually become a shaman, a person typically had to receive a vision calling them to the craft through an intensive religious experience. Only afterwards would they then be initiated into the mysteries of the art. By such ritual actions as symbolic death and resurrection, the shaman would acquire a new mode of being, restructuring his or her physical and mental frame. During this period of initiation, the novice would see the many spirits of the universe and leave his or her body much like a spirit, soaring through the heavens and underworld. There he would be introduced to the different spirits and taught which ones to address in future trances.

Survival of the Dead

In many parts of the world it is held that the human body is the seat of more than one soul, some of which allow a person to survive after death. Among the peoples of the island of Nias, for example, four are distinguished: 1) the shadow and 2) the intelligence, each of which die with the body, 3) a tutelary spirit, termed begoe, and 4) a spirit which is carried on the head. These latter spirits survive even after death. Similar ideas are found among the Euahlayi of southeast Australia, the Dakotas of North America, as well as many other tribes. Just as in Europe the ghost of a dead person is held to haunt the churchyard or the place of death, other cultures also assign different abodes to the multiple souls with which they credit human beings. Of the four souls of a Dakota, after death one is held to stay with the corpse, another in the village, while a third goes into the air and the fourth goes to the land of souls. In the land of souls, the fourth spirit's subsistence may depend on its social rank in its worldly life, its sex, or its mode of death or sepulture. Numerous other factors from its worldly life, such as whether or not its funerary rite was properly observed, also effect its status in the spirit realm.

From the belief in the survival of the dead arose the practice of graveside rituals such as the offering of food or lighting of fires in honour of the dead. While this may have occured at first as an act of friendship or filial piety, it later became an act of ancestor worship. The simple offering of food or shedding of blood at the grave eventually developed into an elaborate system of sacrifice. Even where ancestor worship is not found, the desire to provide the dead with comforts in the future life may have lead to the sacrifice of wives, slaves, animals, or other living beings, as well as the breaking or burning of objects at the grave or even to such provisions as the ferryman's toll, where a coin or coins are put in the mouth or eyes of a corpse to pay the traveling expenses of the soul. In animist societies, the reverence for the dead is not finished with the successful passage of the soul to the land of the dead. On the contrary, the soul may return to avenge its death by helping to uncover injustices or identify murderers, or simply to wreak vengeance for itself. There is a widespread belief that those who die a violent death become malignant spirits and endanger the lives of those who come near the spot where they died. For example, in the Malaysian culture, the stillborn child or the woman who dies in childbirth becomes a pontianak, a spirit who threatens the life of human beings. As a result of such spiritual threats, people resort to magical or religious precautions in order to repelling their spiritual dangers. In the case of the pontianak, Malaysians put glass beads in corpses mouths so that they cannot shriek after death.

Humans Imbedded in Nature

In some animistic worldviews found in hunter-gatherer cultures, the human being is often regarded as existing on an equal footing with the animals, plants, and natural forces surrounding them. Therefore, it is morally imperative for the members of such cultures to treat these agents with respect. In this worldview, humans are considered a denizen, or part, of nature, rather than superior to or separate from it. In such societies, ritual is considered essential for survival not only because it wards off malevolent spirits, but also because it wins the favor of the spirits of one's source of food, shelter, and fertility. In more elaborate animistic religions, such as Shinto, there is a greater sense of a special character to humans that sets them apart from the general run of animals and objects. However, the necessity of ritual to ensure good luck, favorable harvests and so forth is still very important.

It is not surprising to find that many peoples respect and even worship animals (see totem or animal worship), often regarding them as relatives. It is clear that widespread respect was paid to animals as the abode of dead ancestors, and many of the cults to dangerous animals are traceable to this principle, though we need not attribute an animistic origin to it. As the anthropomorphic polytheistic gods became more popular with the rise of the notion of species, worship of animal deities subsided, especially in its strict animistic character. Apart from considerations of this sort, it is probable that animals were regarded as possessing souls early in the history of animistic beliefs. We may assume that humans attributed a soul to the beasts of the field almost as soon as they claimed one for themselves. The animist may attribute to animals the same sorts of ideas and the same mental processes as himself, which may also be associated with greater power, cunning, or magical abilities. Dead animals are sometimes credited with a knowledge of how their remains are treated, potentially with the power to take vengeance on the hunter if he is disrespectful. This furthers the notion that they may possess souls comparable to those of humans in at least some animistic cultures.

Just as human souls are assigned to animals, so too are trees and plants often credited with souls, both human and animal in form. All over the world agricultural peoples practise elaborate ceremonies explicable within the framework of animistic principles. In medieval Europe the corn spirit was sometimes viewed as immanent within a crop, while other times seen as a presiding deity whose life does not depend on that of the growing corn. Further, this spirit was often conceived in some districts as taking the form of an ox, hare or cock, while in others taking that of an old man or woman. In the East Indies and Americas the rice or maize mother is a corresponding figure; in classical Europe and the East we have in Ceres and Demeter, Adonis and Dionysus, and other deities linked to vegetation whose origin is most likely similar to that of the corn spirit. Here we see an example where Tylor's theory seems plausible, as animistic thought progresses, in this case, to polytheism with the merger of plant features with those of animals. Forest trees, no less than cereals, may be seen as having their indwelling spirits in some cultures. The fauns and satyrs of classical Greek literature were goat-footed; in Russia, the tree spirit of the Russian peasantry takes the form of a goat. In Bengal and the East Indies woodcutters endeavour to propitiate the spirit of any tree which they have cut down. In many parts of the world trees are regarded as the abode of the spirits of the dead. Just as a process of syncretism has given rise to cults of animal gods, tree spirits tend to become detached from the trees, which are thenceforth only considered to be their abodes. Here again animism has begun to pass into polytheism.

Some cultures do not make a distinction between animate and inanimate objects. Natural phenomenon, geographic features, everyday objects, and manufactured articles may also be attributed with souls. In the north of Europe, in ancient Greece, and in China, the water or river spirit is horse or bull-shaped. The water monster in serpent shape is even more pervasive as the water spirit. The spirit of syncretism manifests itself in this department of animism too, turning the spirit immanent within natural forces into the presiding djinn or local gods which arose at later times.

Contemporary Examples of Animism in Human Culture

Tribal Animism

The amount of cultures which have upheld animist beliefs is almost impossible to report accurately, as the belief system has been held in its various iterations within innumberable cultures throughout history. Despite what Tylor may have theorized about animism being a mere "stage" that all religious belief must pass through as the culture containing them develops, numerous cultures have held on to animist beliefs and practices, often for many thousands of years. Numerous tribal and hunter gatherer cultures maintaining ancient lifestyles have also maintained animistic beliefs, and many still exist in the contemporary world. Today Animists live in significant numbers among tribal peoples in countries such as Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, the Republic of Guinea Bissau, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russia, Sweden, and Thailand, as well as the United States and Canada. Although the religious beliefs vary immensely between each of these cultures, they all hold to the basic tenet of animism that there is a plurality of own souls, spirits or consciousness.

Modern Neopaganism

Modern Neopagans, especially Eco-Pagans, sometimes describe themselves as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings with whom humans share the world/cosmos. Some, however, use the term to refer to the idea that their key divinities, the Mother Goddess and Horned God, consist of everything that exists. This pantheism in which God is equated with existence and is different from animism because it implies that individual living beings and/or objects may reveal a larger reality or divinity behind everything. In contrast, animists respect beings for their own sake, either because they have or are souls or because they are persons. Regardless, due of this multiplicity of souls, modern Neopaganism is commonly concerned with the relation between human beings and the environment as in typical animistic cultures. not only is the relationship with nature a part of their spiritual awareness, but Neopagan activist groups often also take action in the political sphere in order to uphold environmentalism. Many neopagan environmental activists combine this social activism with their ritual magic in order to put into action their environmental goals. There are currently many neopgagan activist groups around the world, dedicated to various causes. The most well-known of these groups are the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft founded by Starhawk in the late 1970s, as well as Isaac Bonewits' group dubbed Spells for Democracy.

More generally, Neopagan ritual shares many features with the shamanistic rites of the classic animist cultures. For example, rites of passage, like most forms of Neopagan ritual, take place within a sacred circle. While different variations on circle casting exist, most circles are oriented with the cardinal directions which are commonly associated with forces of nature: fire, water, air, and earth. Some Neopagans address the specific spiritual powers of a particular direction, while others address animistic forces such as the "winds." Much like the contacts made between the shaman and the many spirits, Neopagans commonly invoke specific gods and goddesses, who are invited to be present in the circle or else embodied within participants. During the ritual, participants are often led on an "astral journey" in which they visualize another realm of existence, not unlike the spirit realm discussed within numerous animist cultures. The presence of deities, journeys through other worlds, and the subsequnet shifts in consciousness all contribute to participants' experience of the rite. Much like the initiation ceremonies animist cultures performed on members of their societies, witchcraft covens and Neopagan ritual groups include initiation rites to mark the passage of members from one stage of learning and skill to another. Since the circle is demarcated as a safe and sacred space, it facilitates initiations where the participant passes from one phase of life and into another.

The new animism

Animist thought has also been philosophically developed in modern times by animistic thinkers in order to promote its continued survival. In an article entitled "Animism Revisited", Nurit Bird-David builds on the work of Irving Hallowell by discussing the animist worldview and lifeways of the Nayaka people of India. Hallowell had learnt from the Ojibwa of southern central Canada that the humans are only one kind of 'person' among many, as there are also 'rock persons', 'eagle persons' and so forth. Hallowell and Bird-David discuss the ways in which particular indigenous cultures know how to relate to particular persons in nature. There is no need to talk of metaphysics or to impute non-empirical 'beliefs' in discussing animism. What is required is an openness to consider that humans are neither separate from the world nor distinct from other kinds of being in most significant ways. The new animism also makes considerably more sense of attempts to comprehend totemism as an understanding that humans are not only closely related to other humans but also to particular animals, plants, and inanimate objects. It also helps by providing a term for the communities among whom shamans work. That is, they are now considered to be animists rather than shamanists. Shamans are employed among animist communities to engage or mediate with other-than-human persons in situations that would be fraught or dangerous for un-initiated, untrained or non-skillful people. The -ism of 'animism' should not suggest an overly systematic approach. Rather, it is preferable to the term shamanism which has led many commentators to construct an elaborate system out of the everyday practices employed by animists to engage with other-than-human persons.

Significance of Animism

Animism is an immensely important modality of thought as well as a category of religious classification. Not only has the academic construct of animism helped us to understand many aspects of human culture as it has developed through history, but can also provide insights today: not only is animism representative of one of the oldest forms of religion, but it is still in existence today. While animism is present in tribal cultures of Africa, Asia, Austrailia and the Americas, it is also subtly a part of the greater span of human consciousness. All of the core beliefs of animism persist in decidedly non-animistic religions today. Supposedly more "advanced" monotheist religions such as Christianity and Islam, among others, proclaim the existence of human souls as well as spirits (in the case of angels). All religions believe in some sort of survival of the dead beyond earthly life, whether it be the judgement so important in the doctrines of the Abrahamic religions, or the doctrine of reincarnation so popular in the east. That said, the honour provided for the dead found in all faiths no doubt arose out of animism. Furthermore, it is arguable that some forms of shamanism live on within those who perform the rituals in religious ceremonies, whether they be priests or rabbis. And finally, the sense of human relation in nature is becoming increasingly popular in contemporary religion as the importance of the ecological position of humanity becomes more and more of an issue. Thus, the tenets of animism can be said to have, at least in part, formed the bedrock of religion as we know it today. On a smaller scale, animist thinking often finds its way into our everyday lives. For example, each time we blame, fallible technology for "willfully" breaking down, we hearken back to an animistic worldview. Thus, a natural affinity for attributing persona to our surroundings does perhaps exist in humans, an idea which we still see in our everyday life.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Bird-David, Nurit. 1991. "Animism Revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology", Current Anthropology 40, pp. 67-91. Reprinted in Graham Harvey (ed.) 2002. Readings in Indigenous Religions (London and New York: Continuum) pp.72-105.
  • Hallowell, A. Irving. "Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and world view" in Stanley Diamond (ed.) 1960. Culture in History (New York: Columbia University Press). Reprinted in Graham Harvey (ed.) 2002. Readings in Indigenous Religions (London and New York: Continuum) pp.17-49.
  • Harvey, Graham. Animism: Respecting the Living World London: Hurst and co.; New York: Columbia University Press; Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2005.
  • "Rites of Passage: Neopagan Rites". <http://www.bookrags.com/other/religion/neopagan-rites-eorl-11.html> [Accessed May 15, 2006].
  • "Systems of Religious and Spiritual Belief." The New Encyclopedia Britannica: Volume 26 Macropaedia. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2002. 530-577.

See also

External links

  • Animism and Totem Spirit Animals: Discovering Animal Totems, Dictionaries, Feathers
  • Ishmael.org FAQ A database which includes many questions and answers regarding animism (and which conflicts greatly with the definition of the 'old' animism above while illustrating one version of the 'new' animism quite well) on the website of Daniel Quinn, author of My Ishmael. Choose Animism from Topic.
  • [1] is a new website devoted to the discussion of the new animism. It arises from the work of Graham Harvey whose book Animism: Respecting the Living World discusses the whole topic, its benefits and problems, in considerable detail.
  • [2] A personal view of animism
  • [3] Animism in Zambia

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.