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What Is Animism?

Animism is the belief that all things, both animate and inanimate, possess a spirit that connects them. It was an important feature of ancient religions and indigenous cultures. While animism was formally defined in 1871, elements of it can be seen in ancient philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato, and it remains a key part of some modern religions like Shinto. Animists reject the Cartesian distinction between mind and matter, instead believing that all things are interconnected through spirits.

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369 views4 pages

What Is Animism?

Animism is the belief that all things, both animate and inanimate, possess a spirit that connects them. It was an important feature of ancient religions and indigenous cultures. While animism was formally defined in 1871, elements of it can be seen in ancient philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato, and it remains a key part of some modern religions like Shinto. Animists reject the Cartesian distinction between mind and matter, instead believing that all things are interconnected through spirits.

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What Is Animism?
By McKenzie Perkins
Updated April 05, 2019

Animism is the idea that all things—animate and inanimate—possess a spirit or an


essence. First coined in 1871, animism is a key feature in many ancient religions,
especially of indigenous tribal cultures. Animism is a foundational element in the
development of ancient human spirituality, and it can be identified in different forms
throughout major modern world religions.

FA S T FA C T S

Key Takeaways: Animism

Animism is the concept that all elements of the material world—all


people, animals, objects, geographic features, and natural
phenomena—possess a spirit that connects them to each other.
Animism is a feature of various ancient and modern religions,
including Shinto, the traditional Japanese folk religion.
Today, animism is often used as an anthropological term when
discussing different systems of belief.

Animism Definition
The modern definition of animism is the idea that all things—including people,
animals, geographic features, natural phenomenon, and inanimate objects—
possess a spirit that connects them to one another. Animism is an anthropological
construct used to identify common threads of spirituality between different systems
of beliefs.
Animism is often used to illustrate contrasts between ancient beliefs and modern
organized religion. It most cases, animism is not considered to be a religion in its
own right, but rather a feature of various practices and beliefs.

Origins
Animism is a key feature of both ancient and modern spiritual practices, but it
wasn’t given its modern definition until the late 1800s. Historians believe that
animism is foundational to the human spirituality, dating back to the Paleolithic
period and the hominids that existed at that time.

Historically, attempts have been made to define the human spiritual experience by
philosophers and religious leaders. Around 400 B.C., Pythagoras discussed
connection and union between the individual soul and the divine soul, indicating a
belief in an overarching "soulness" of humans and objects. He is thought to have
enhanced these beliefs while studying with ancient Egyptians, whose reverence for
life in nature and personification of death indicate strong animism beliefs.

Plato identified a three-part soul in both individuals and cities in Republic, published
around 380 B.C., while Aristotle defined living things as the things that posses a
spirit in On the Soul, published in 350 B.C. The idea of an animus mundi, or a world
soul, is derived from these ancient philosophers, and it was the subject of
philosophical and, later, scientific thought for centuries before being clearly defined
in the later 19th Century.

Though many thinkers thought to identify the connection between natural and
supernatural worlds, the modern definition of animism was not coined until 1871,
when Sir Edward Burnett Tyler used it in his book, Primitive Culture, to define the
oldest religious practices.

Key Features
As a result of Tyler’s work, animism is commonly associated with primitive cultures,
but elements of animism can be observed in the world’s major organized religions.
Shinto, for example, is the traditional religion of Japan practiced by more than 112
million people. At its core is the belief in spirits, known as kami, which inhabit all
things, a belief that links modern Shinto with ancient animistic practices.

Source of the Spirit

Within indigenous Australian tribal communities, there exists a strong totemist


tradition. The totem, usually a plant or an animal, possesses supernatural powers
and is held is reverence as an emblem or symbol of the tribal community. Often,
there are taboos regarding touching, eating, or harming the totem. The source of
the spirit of the totem is the living entity, the plant or the animal, rather than an
inanimate object.

By contrast, the Inuit people of North America believe that spirits can possess any
entity, animate, inanimate, living, or dead. The belief in spirituality is much broader
and holistic, as the spirit is not dependent on the plant or animal, but rather the
entity is dependent on the spirit that inhabits it. There are fewer taboos regarding
the use of the entity because of a belief that all spirits—human and non-human—
are intertwined.

Rejection of Cartesian Dualism

Modern human beings tend to situate themselves on a Cartesian plane, with mind
and matter opposed and unrelated. For example, the concept of the food chain
indicates that the connection between different species is solely for the purpose of
consumption, decay, and regeneration.

Animists reject this subject-object contrast of Cartesian dualism, instead positioning


all things in relationship to one another. For example, Jains follow strict vegetarian
or vegan diets that align with their nonviolent beliefs. For Jains, the act of eating is
an act of violence against the thing being consumed, so they limit the violence to
the species with the fewest senses, according to Jainist doctrine.

Sources
Aristotle. On The Soul: and Other Psychological Works, translated by Fred D. Miller, Jr., Kindle
ed., Oxford University Press, 2018.

Balikci, Asen. “The Netsilik Inuit Today.” Études/Inuit/Studieso, vol. 2, no. 1, 1978, pp. 111–
119.

Grimes, Ronald L. Readings in Ritual Studies. Prentice-Hall, 1996.

Harvey, Graham. Animism: Respecting the Living World. Hurst & Company, 2017.

Kolig, Erich. “Australian Aboriginal Totemic Systems: Structures Of Power.” Oceania, vol. 58,
no. 3, 1988, pp. 212–230., doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1988.tb02273.x.

Laugrand Frédéric. Inuit Shamanism and Christianity: Transitions and Transformations in the
Twentieth Centuryur. McGill-Queens University Press, 2014.

O'Neill, Dennis. “Common Elements of Religion.” Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction to


Folk Religion and Magic , Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College , 11 Dec.
2011, www2.palomar.edu/anthro/religion/rel_2.htm.
Plato. The Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowell, Kindle ed., Enhanced Media Publishing,
2016.

Robinson, Howard. “Dualism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University,


2003, plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/dualism/.

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