Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life")[1][2] is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.[3] Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names or metaphors in mythology. Animism is particularly widely found in the religions of indigenous peoples,[4] although it is also found in Shinto, and some forms of Hinduism, Sikhism and Neopaganism.
Throughout European history, philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, among others, contemplated the possibility that souls exist in animals, plants and people, however the currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the 19th century by Sir Edward Tylor, who created it as "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first".[4]
Whilst having similarities to totemism, animism differs in that it, according to the anthropologist Tim Ingold, focuses on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuate life, whilst totemism more typically holds that there is a primary source, such as the land itself, or the ancestors, who provide the basis to life. Certain indigenous religious groups, such as that of the Australian Aborigines are more typically totemic, whilst others, like the Inuit are more typically animistic in their worldview.[5]
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The term animism appears to have been first developed as animismus by the German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl circa 1720, to refer to the "doctrine that animal life is produced by an immaterial soul". The actual English language form of animism however can only be attested to 1819.[6] The term was taken and redefined by the anthropologist Sir Edward Taylor in his 1871 book Primitive Culture, in which he defined it as being "the theory of the universal animation of nature".
Under Tylor's definition therefore, animists viewed the natural world as being innately alive. Being a self-described "confirmed scientific rationalist", he himself however believed that such a view was "childish" and typical of "cognitive underdevelopment",[7] and that it was therefore common in "primitive" peoples such as those living in hunter gatherer societies.
Tylor's definition has largely been followed by anthropologists since, such as Emile Durkheim, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Tim Ingold. However some anthropologists, such as Nurit Bird-Davis have criticised the Tylorian concept of animism, believing it to be outdated.[8]
Animism in the widest sense, i.e. thinking of objects as animate, and treating them as if they were animate, is near-universal. Jean Piaget applied the term in child psychology in reference to an implicit understanding of the world in a child's mind which assumes all events are the product of intention or consciousness. Piaget explains this with a cognitive inability to distinguish the external world from one's own psyche. Developmental psychology has since established that the distinction of animate vs. inanimate things is an abstraction acquired by learning.
The justification for attributing life to objects was stated by David Hume in his Natural History of Religion (Section III): "There is a universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious."[9]
Psychoanalysist Sigmund Freud thought that "primitive men" came up with the animistic system by observing the phenomena of sleep (including dreams) and of death which so much resembles it, and by attempting to explain those states. Freud regarded it as perfectly natural for man to react to the phenomena which aroused his speculations by forming the idea of the soul and then extending it to objects in the external world.[10]
Lists of phenomena from the contemplation of which "the savage" was led to believe in animism have been given by Sir E. B. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Andrew Lang and others; an animated controversy arose between the former as to the priority of their respective lists.[citation needed] Among these phenomena are trance states, dreams and hallucinations.
Animism is a belief held in many religions around the world, and is not, as some have purported, a type of religion in itself. It is a belief, such as shamanism, polytheism or monotheism, that is found in several religions.
Some theories have been put forward that the belief in animism among early humans was the basis for the later evolution of religions. In this theory, put forward by Sir E. B. Tylor, early humans initially worshipped local deities of nature, in a form of animism. These eventually grew into larger, polytheistic deities, such as gods of the sun and moon.
In many animistic world views found in hunter-gatherer cultures, the human being is often regarded as on a roughly equal footing with other animals, plants, and natural forces.[11] Therefore, it is morally imperative to treat these agents with respect. In this world view, humans are considered a part of nature, rather than superior to, or separate from it. In such societies, ritual is considered essential for survival, as it wins the favor of the spirits of one's source of food, shelter, and fertility and wards off malevolent spirits. 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, while retaining the necessity of ritual to ensure good luck, favorable harvests, and so on.
Most animistic belief systems hold that the spirit survives physical death. In some systems, the spirit is believed to pass to an easier world of abundant game or ever-ripe crops, while in other systems, the spirit remains on earth as a ghost, often malignant. Still other systems combine these two beliefs, holding that the soul must journey to the spirit world without becoming lost and thus wandering as a ghost (e.g., the Navajo religion). Funeral, mourning rituals, and ancestor worship performed by those surviving the deceased are often considered necessary for the successful completion of this journey.
From the belief in the survival of the dead arose the practice of offering food, lighting fires, etc., at the grave, at first, maybe, as an act of friendship or filial piety, later as an act of ancestor worship. The simple offering of food or shedding of blood at the grave develops 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 lead to the sacrifice of wives, slaves, animals, and so on, to the breaking or burning of objects at the grave or to the provision of the ferryman's toll: a coin put in the mouth of the corpse to pay the traveling expenses of the soul.
But all is not finished with the passage of the soul to the land of the dead. The soul may return to avenge its death by helping to discover the murderer, or 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 haunted spot. In Malay folklore, the woman who dies in childbirth becomes a pontianak, a vampire-like spirit who threatens the life of human beings. People resort to magical or religious means of repelling spiritual dangers from such malignant spirits.
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 much of the cults to dangerous animals is traceable to this principle; though there is no need to attribute an animistic origin to it.[12]
The practice of head shrinking among Jivaroan and Urarina peoples derives from an animistic belief that if the spirit of one's mortal enemies, i.e. the nemesis of ones being, are not trapped within the head, they can escape slain bodies. After the spirit transmigrates to another body, they can take the form of a predatory animal and even exact revenge.
A large part of mythology is based upon a belief in souls and spirits — that is, upon animism in its more general sense. Urarina myths that portray plants, inanimate objects, and non-human animals as personal beings are examples of animism in its more restrictive sense.[13]
However, many mythologies focus largely on corporeal beings rather than "spiritual" ones; the latter may even be entirely absent. Stories of transformation, deluge and doom myths, and myths of the origin of death do not necessarily have any animistic basis.
As mythology began to include more numerous and complex ideas about a future life and purely spiritual beings, the overlap between mythology and animism widened. However, a rich mythology does not necessarily depend on a belief in many spiritual beings.
The term "animism" has been applied to many different philosophical systems. It is used to describe Aristotle's view of the relation of soul and body held also by the Stoics and Scholastics. On the other hand monadology (Leibniz) has also been termed animistic. The name is most commonly applied to vitalism, a view mainly associated with Georg Ernst Stahl and revived by F. Bouillier (1813–1899), which makes life, or life and mind, the directive principle in evolution and growth, holding that all cannot be traced back to chemical and mechanical processes, but that there is a directive force which guides energy without altering its amount. An entirely different class of ideas, also termed animistic, is the belief in the world soul (anima mundi), held by Plato, Schelling and others.
Modern Neopagans, especially Eco-Pagans,[14] sometimes like to describe themselves as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings and spirits with whom humans share the world/cosmos.[15]
Many Pagans and Neopagans believe that there are spirits of nature and place, and that these spirits can sometimes be as powerful as minor deities. Polytheist Pagans may extend the idea of many gods and goddesses to encompass the many spirits of nature, such as those embodied in holy wells, mountains and sacred springs. While some of these many spirits may be seen as fitting into rough categories and sharing similarities with one another, they are also respected as separate individuals. On the other hand, some Wiccans may use the term animist to refer to the idea that a Mother Goddess and Horned God consist of everything that exists.[16]
Animism has some similar traits to Pantheism, and the two are sometimes compared. Some faiths and religions can be both pantheistic and animistic. One of the main differences is that while animists believe everything to be spiritual in nature, they do not necessarily see the spiritual nature of everything in existence as being united, the way pantheists do. In some ways, Pantheism is a form of animism, where everything shares the same spiritual essence rather than having distinct spirits and/or souls.
African traditional religions, a group of beliefs in various spirits of nature, are commonly described as animistic, yet this fact has for many years been disputed by leading cultural anthropologists. For the most part, the description of African traditional religions in this way reflects more of a bias of European understanding and less of a scientifically balanced and ethnographically informed perspective. In describing African traditional religions, "Animism" is a term that is used as shorthand to describe a richer and more complex interplay between elders, ancestors and nature spirits.
In the Canary Islands (Spain), aboriginal Guanches professed an animistic religion. Aboriginal Guanches had a North African origin.
Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan, is highly animistic. In Shinto, spirits of nature, or kami, exist everywhere, from the major (such as the goddess of the sun), who can be considered polytheistic, to the minor, who are more likely to be seen as a form of animism.
There are some Hindu groups which may be considered animist. The coastal Karnataka has a different tradition of praying the spirits for their God. See also Folk Hinduism
Many traditional Native American religions are fundamentally animistic. See, for example, the Lakota Sioux prayer Mitakuye Oyasin. The Haudenausaunee Thanksgiving Address, which can take an hour to recite, directs thanks towards every being - plant, animal and other.
Many, though not all, Neopagan religions, practice a form of animism. Most followers of Germanic Neopaganism believe in spirits that are, or live in Nature and technology, which stems from their effort to reconstruct historical Norse Paganism.[citation needed]
The New Age movement commonly purports animism in the form of the existence of nature spirits and fairies.
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(Lat., Anima, Soul)
Animism is the doctrine or theory of the soul. In current language
the term has a twofold signification: I. PHILOSOPHICAL--the
doctrine that the soul is the principle of life in man and in other
living things. As applied to man it embodies the essence of
spiritualistic as opposed to Materialistic philosophy. II.
ETHNOLOGICAL--a theory proposed in recent years to account for the
origin and development of religion. As such it is known as the Soul
or Ghost-theory of religion.
For the application of the theory of animism to living things in general, see LIFE. So far as it is specially concerned with man, animism aims at a true knowledge of man's nature and dignity by establishing the existence and nature of the soul, its union with the body, its origin and duration. These problems are at the basis of our conscious existence and underlie all our studies in mental and moral life. The importance of animism to-day is shown because;
In establishing the doctrine of animism the general line of
reasoning is from effect to cause, from phenomena to their subject
or agent. From the acts of mind and of will manifested in
individual conscious life, we are forced to admit the existence of
their source and principle, which is the human soul; from the
nature of the activity is inferred the nature of the agent.
Scholastic philosophy, with Aristotle and the Christian
Fathers, vindicates the true dignity of man by proclaiming the
soul to be a substantial and spiritual principle endowed with
immortality. The soul is a substance because it has the elements of
being, potency, stability, and is the subject of
modifications--which elements make up the notion of substance. That
the soul is a spiritual substance, i. e. immaterial and a spirit,
is inferred from its acts of intelligence and of freewill, which
are performed without the intrinsic cooperations of the bodily
organs. By immortality is understood in general terms the future
life of the soul after separation from the body. The chief errors
are those which contend;
In this sense animism is the theory proposed by some evolutionists to account for the origin of religion. Evolution assumes that the higher civilized races are the outcome and development from a ruder state. This early stage resembles that of the lowest savages existing to-day. Their religious belief is known as animism, i.e. belief in spiritual beings, and represents the minimum or rudimentary definition of religion. With this postulate as the groundwork for the philosophy of religion, the development of religious thought can be traced from existing data and therefore admits of scientific treatment. The principle of continuity, which is the basal principle in other departments of knowledge, was thus applied to religion. Comte had given a general outline of this theory in his law of the three states. According to him the conception of the primary mental condition of mankind is a state of "pure fetishism, constantly characterized by the free and direct exercise of our primitive tendency to conceive all external bodies soever, natural or artificial, as animated by a life essentially analogous to our own, with mere difference of intensity". Proposed at a time when evolution was in the ascendency, this opinion fell at once under the dominion of the current conviction. The hope was entertained that by a wider and more complete induction religion might be considered as a purely natural phenomenon and thus at last be placed on a scientific basis.
The foundation of animism as a theory of religion is the twofold
principle of evolution:
Animism therefore discovers human life in all moving things. To the
savage and to primitive man there is no distinction between the
animate and the inanimate. Nature is all alive. Every object is
controlled by its own independent spirit. Spirits are seen in the
rivers, the lakes, the fountains, the woods, the mountains, the
trees, the animals, the flowers, the grass, the birds. Spiritual
existences--e. g. elves, gnomes, ghosts, manes, demons,
deities--inhabit almost everything, and consequently almost
everything is an object of worship. The Milky Way is "the path of
the souls leading to the spirit-land"; and the Northern Lights are
the dances of the dead warriors and seers in the realms above. The
Australians say that the sounds of the wind in the trees are the
voices of the ghosts of the dead communing with one another or
warning the living of what is to come. The conception of the human
soul formed from dreams and visions served as a type on which
primitive man framed his ideas of other souls and of spiritual
beings from the lowest elf up to the highest god. Thus the gods of
the higher religions have been evolved out of the spirits, whether
ghosts or not, of the lower religions; and the belief in ghosts and
spirits was produced by the savage's experience of dreams and
trances. Here, it is claimed, we have the germ of all religions,
although Tylor confesses that it is impossible to trace the process
by which the doctrine of souls gave rise to the belief in the great
gods. Originally, spirits were the application of human souls to
non-human beings; they were not supernatural, but only became so in
the course of time. Now, as modern science shows the belief in
ghosts or spirits to be a hallucination, the highest and purest
religion--being only the elaboration of savage beliefs, to the
savage mind reasonable enough--cannot be accepted by the modern
mind for the reason that it is not supernatural nor even true. Such
in brief is the outline of the theory by which Tylor attempts to
explain not only the phenomenon but the whole history and
development of religion.
Tylor's theory expresses two sides of animism, viz., souls and
spirits. Spencer attempts to synthesize them into one, viz., souls
or ancestor-worship. He agrees with Tylor in the animistic
explanation of dreams, diseases, death, madness, idiocy, i. e. as
due to spiritual influences; but differs in presenting one solution
only; viz., cult of souls or worship of the dead. "The rudimentary
form of all religion", he writes, "is the propitiation of dead
ancestors", or "ghost propitiation". Hence Spencer denies that the
ascription of life to the whole of nature is a primitive thought,
or that men ever ascribed to animals, plants, inanimate objects,
and natural phenomena souls of their own. Spencer's theory is known
as the "Ghost-theory of Religion" and at the present time is
generally discredited even by evolutionists. With Tylor the worship
of the dead is an important subdivision of animism; with Spencer it
is the one and all of religion. Lippert consistently carries out
the theory of Spencer and, instead of animism, uses the word
Seelenkult. De la Saussaye says that Lippert pushes his
view to an extreme and supports it with rich, but not
over-trustworthy, material. Schultze considers fetishism and
animism as equally primitive. F.B. Jevons rejects the theory that
all gods of earlier races were spirits of dead men deified.
The animism of Tylor is vague and indefinite. It means the doctrine
of spirits in general, and is best expressed by "Animated Nature".
Fetishism is a subordinate department of animism, viz, the doctrine
of spirits embodied in, or attached to, or conveying influence
through, certain animals or material objects. The animism of Tylor
differs little from the naturalism of Reville or the fetishism of
De Ia Rialle. It accounts for the belief in immortality and
metempsychosis. It thus explains the belief in the passage of souls
from men to beasts, and to sticks and stones. It includes
tree-worship and plant-worship--e. g. the classic hamadrya, the
tree-worship of the South African natives, the rice-feasts held by
the Dyaks of Borneo to keep the rice-souls in the plants lest by
their departure the crop decay. It is the solution proposed for
Manes-worship, for the Lares and the Penates among the Greeks and
Romans, where the dead ancestors, passing into deities, go on
protecting the family as the dead chief watches over the tribe. In
animism Tylor finds an explanation for funeral rites and
customs--feasts of the dead, the human sacrifices of widows in
India, of slaves in Borneo; sending messages to dead chiefs of
Dahomey by killing captives taken in war, the slaughtering of the
Pawnee's horse and of the Arab's camel at the graves of their
masters, placing food and weapons in, or on, the tomb--customs
which survive in the practice of burning paper messengers and
placing stone, clay, or wooden substitutes on graves in China and
Japan.
The general principles of animism are:
Tylor published the third edition of "Primitive Culture" in 1891,
confident of having proved the evolution theory as to the origin of
our civilization from a savage condition, the savage belief in
souls and spirits as the germs of religion, and the continuity of
this belief in its progressive forms of development up to
Monotheism. Yet the hope was short-lived. More scientific research
and severer criticism have deprived this theory of its former wide
influence.
(1) The assumption that the lowest savages of to-day give
approximately a faithful picture of primitive times is not true.
Savages have a past and a long one, even though not recorded.
"Nothing in the natural history of man", writes the Duke of Argyll,
"can be more certain than that morally and intellectually and
physically he can and often does sink from a higher to a lower
level". Max Müller assures us that "if there is one thing which a
comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is
the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. . . .
Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we
find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later
states". Even Tylor admits that animism is everywhere found with
the worship of a great God. Brinton holds that the
resemblance of the savage mind to that of the child is superficial
and likens the savage to the uncultivated and ignorant adult among
ourselves.
(2) It is opposed by the Philological and Mythological schools.
Thus Max Müller explains much in animism by superstition, a
poetical conception of nature, and especially by personification.
He says that inanimate objects were conceived as active powers and
as such were described as agents by a necessity of language,
without, however, predicating life or soul of them; for human
language knows at first no agents except human agents. Hence
animism was a stage of thought reached slowly, and not by sudden
impulses. "What is classed as animism in ancient Aryan mythology",
he writes, "is often no more than a poetical conception of nature
which enables the poet to address sun, moon, rivers and trees as if
they could hear and understand his words." The same truth finds
abundant illustration in the Psalms. "Sometimes, however," he adds,
"what is called animism is a superstition which, after having
recognized agents in sun, moon, rivers and trees, postulates on the
strength of analogy the existence of agents or spirits dwelling in
other parts of nature also, haunting our houses, bringing
misfortunes upon us, though sometimes conferring blessings. These
ghosts are often mixed up with the ghosts of the departed and form
a large chapter in the history of ancient superstition." The ghost,
or ancestor, theory received a fatal blow from Lang's "Making of a
Religion ", where it is shown that the belief of the most primitive
savages is in a High God, Supreme God, and Moral God. Lang thus confutes
Tylor's contentions:
(3) Animism is not the sole and chief source of religion. De la
Saussaye says that the belief of the early Teutons consisted only
to a small extent of animistic ideas concerning souls and spirits.
Prof. F. B. Gummere teaches that in Teutonic mythology animism has
not succeeded in annexing nature-mythology. F. B. Jevons holds that
the religious idea is no part of animism pure and simple, and to
make the personal agents of animism into supernatural agents or
divine powers there must be added some idea which is not contained
in animism, and that idea is a specifically religious idea, one
which is apprehended directly or intuitively by the religious
consciousness. E. Mogk, whose inclinations lean to Tylor, is yet
constrained by a scientific mind to recognize nature-worship and
the great gods as original; and he warns the student of Teutonic
mythology that he must not allow himself to be seduced into
disregarding the fact that the worship of the God of Heaven is one
of the most original elements of the Teutonic belief. De la
Saussaye and Pfleiderer hold that the supposition according to
which every conception of an object--e. g. tree, sun, moon, clouds,
thunder, earth, heaven--as a living being has an animistic
character is undemonstrable and improbable. They show from Teutonic
mythology that the power and beneficent influence of these objects
of nature and their symbolic conception belong to another sphere of
ideas and sentiments than that of animism.
(4) Prof. W. Robertson Smith and Prof. Frazer conclusively prove
that the animistic religion of fear was neither universal nor
primitive. According to Prof. Frazer, the primitive reason of
sacrifice was communion with God. Even worship of the
dead cannot be entirely explained animistically as the cult of
souls. Animistic conceptions may enter into the worship of
ancestors and heroes; but other ideas are so essential that they
cannot be regarded merely as modifications of soul-worship.
(5) It is not primitive nor specific. Prof. Brinton says, "There is
no special form of religious thought which expresses itself as what
has been called by Dr. Tylor Animism, i. e. the belief that
inanimate objects are animated and possess souls or spirits." This
opinion, which in one guise or another is common to all religions
and many philosophies, "is merely a secondary phenomenon of the
religious sentiment, not a trait characteristic of primitive
faiths". De la Saussaye holds that animism is always and everywhere
mixed up with religion; it is nowhere the whole of religion. Cf.
ANTHROPOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY, EVOLUTION, TOTEMISM, SHAMANISM, FETISHISM,
RELIGION, SPIRITISM.
Animism is a belief common in many different religions and philosophies. It is the belief that there are spiritual beings in plants and animals. Many animistic religions also believe that acts of nature, for example - the wind and rain, and geographic features, for example - mountains and rivers, have spirits in them.
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