16 Facts About Animism

Animism is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.

Animism is used in the anthropology of religion, as a term for the belief system of many Indigenous peoples, especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions.

Animism focuses on the metaphysical universe, with a specific focus on the concept of the immaterial soul.

Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical world, and that soul, spirit, or sentience exists not only in humans, but in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment: water sprites, vegetation deities, tree spirits, etc.

Animism adopted the term animism from the writings of German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl, who had developed the term in 1708, as a biological theory that souls formed the vital principle, and that the normal phenomena of life and the abnormal phenomena of disease could be traced to spiritual causes.

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Animism did not believe that animism was inherently illogical, but he suggested that it arose from early humans' dreams and visions and thus was a rational system.

Animism argued that both humans and other animal species view inanimate objects as potentially alive as a means of being constantly on guard against potential threats.

Animism's suggested explanation did not deal with the question of why such a belief became central to the religion.

Animism emphasized the need to challenge the modernist, Western perspectives of what a person is, by entering into a dialogue with different worldwide views.

Animism explains that animism is a "relational epistemology" rather than a failure of primitive reasoning.

Animism suggests that such a relational ontology is in close accord with our spontaneous perceptual experience; it would draw us back to our senses, and to the primacy of the sensuous terrain, enjoining a more respectful and ethical relation to the more-than-human community of animals, plants, soils, mountains, waters, and weather-patterns that materially sustains us.

Animism holds that civilized reason is sustained only by intensely animistic participation between human beings and their own written signs.

Animism is not the same as pantheism, although the two are sometimes confused.

Animism is not peripheral to Christian identity but is its nurturing home ground, its axis mundi.

Animism entails the belief that "all living things have a soul", and thus, a central concern of animist thought surrounds how animals can be eaten, or otherwise used for humans' subsistence needs.

Animism can entail relationships being established with non-corporeal spirit entities.