Animism

Religious belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence

Animism (from Latin: anima meaning 'breath, spirit, life')[1][2] is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.[3][4][5][6] Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion, as a term for the belief system of many Indigenous peoples,[7] especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions.[8] Animism focuses on the metaphysical universe, with a specific focus on the concept of the immaterial soul.[9]

Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples, that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion");[10] the term is an anthropological construct.

Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinions differ on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world, or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late 19th century (1871) by Sir Edward Tylor. It is "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first."[11]

Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical (or material) world, and that soul, spirit, or sentience exists not only in humans, but also 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 may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists (such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan, and many contemporary Pagans).[12]

## Contents

* 1 Etymology
* 2 "Old animism” definitions
* 2.1 Edward Tylor's definition
* 2.2 Social evolutionist conceptions
* 2.3 Confounding animism with totemism
* 3 "New animism" non-archaic definitions
* 3.1 Hallowell and the Ojibwe
* 3.2 Postmodern anthropology
* 3.3 Ethical and ecological understanding
* 3.4 Relation to the concept of 'I-thou'
* 4 Religion
* 4.1 Concepts
* 4.1.1 Distinction from pantheism
* 4.1.2 Fetishism / totemism
* 4.2 African indigenous religions
* 4.3 Asian origin religions
* 4.3.1 Indian-origin religions
* 4.3.2 Japan and Shinto
* 4.3.3 Kalash people
* 4.3.4 Korea
* 4.3.5 Philippines' native belief
* 4.3.6 Abrahamic religions
* 4.3.7 Pre-Islamic Arab religion
* 4.4 Neopagan and New Age movements
* 4.5 Shamanism
* 5 Animist life
* 5.1 Non-human animals
* 5.2 Flora
* 5.3 The elements
* 5.4 Spirits
* 6 Other usage
* 6.1 Science
* 6.2 Socio-political impact
* 6.3 Art and literature
* 7 See also
* 8 References
* 8.1 Sources
* 9 Further reading
* 10 External links

## Etymology[edit | edit source]

Sir Edward Tylor had initially wanted to describe the phenomenon as spiritualism, but he realized that such would cause confusion with the modern religion of spiritualism, which was then prevalent across Western nations.[13] He adopted the term animism from the writings of German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl,[14] who had developed the term animismus 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.[15]

The first known usage in English appeared in 1819.[16]

## "Old animism” definitions[edit | edit source]

Earlier anthropological perspectives, which have since been termed the old animism, were concerned with knowledge on what is alive and what factors make something alive.[17] The old animism assumed that animists were individuals who were unable to understand the difference between persons and things.[18] Critics of the old animism have accused it of preserving "colonialist and dualist worldviews and rhetoric."[19]

### Edward Tylor's definition[edit | edit source]

Edward Tylor developed animism as an anthropological theory.

The idea of animism was developed by anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor through his 1871 book Primitive Culture,[1] in which he defined it as "the general doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings in general." According to Tylor, animism often includes "an idea of pervading life and will in nature;"[20] a belief that natural objects other than humans have souls. This formulation was little different from that proposed by Auguste Comte as "fetishism",[21] but the terms now have distinct meanings.

For Tylor, animism represented the earliest form of religion, being situated within an evolutionary framework of religion that has developed in stages and which will ultimately lead to humanity rejecting religion altogether in favor of scientific rationality.[22] Thus, for Tylor, animism was fundamentally seen as a mistake, a basic error from which all religions grew.[22] He 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. However, it was based on erroneous, unscientific observations about the nature of reality.[23] Stringer notes that his reading of Primitive Culture led him to believe that Tylor was far more sympathetic in regard to "primitive" populations than many of his contemporaries and that Tylor expressed no belief that there was any difference between the intellectual capabilities of "savage" people and Westerners.[4]

The idea that there had once been "one universal form of primitive religion" (whether labeled animism, totemism, or shamanism) has been dismissed as "unsophisticated" and "erroneous" by archaeologist Timothy Insoll, who stated that "it removes complexity, a precondition of religion now, in all its variants".[24]

### Social evolutionist conceptions[edit | edit source]

Tylor's definition of animism was part of a growing international debate on the nature of "primitive society" by lawyers, theologians, and philologists. The debate defined the field of research of a new science: anthropology. By the end of the 19th century, an orthodoxy on "primitive society" had emerged, but few anthropologists still would accept that definition. The "19th-century armchair anthropologists" argued, that "primitive society" (an evolutionary category) was ordered by kinship and divided into exogamous descent groups related by a series of marriage exchanges. Their religion was animism, the belief that natural species and objects had souls.

With the development of private property, the descent groups were displaced by the emergence of the territorial state. These rituals and beliefs eventually evolved over time into the vast array of "developed" religions. According to Tylor, as society became more scientifically advanced, fewer members of that society would believe in animism. However, any remnant ideologies of souls or spirits, to Tylor, represented "survivals" of the original animism of early humanity.[25]

> The term ["animism"] clearly began as an expression of a nest of insulting approaches to indigenous peoples and the earliest putatively religious humans. It was and sometimes remains, a colonialist slur.

—Graham Harvey, 2005.[26]

### Confounding animism with totemism[edit | edit source]

In 1869 (three years after Tylor proposed his definition of animism), Edinburgh lawyer John Ferguson McLennan, argued that the animistic thinking evident in fetishism gave rise[colloquialism?] to a religion he named totemism. Primitive people believed, he argued, that they were descended from the same species as their totemic animal.[21] Subsequent debate by the "armchair anthropologists" (including J. J. Bachofen, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud) remained focused on totemism rather than animism, with few directly challenging Tylor's definition. Anthropologists "have commonly avoided the issue of animism and even the term itself rather than revisit this prevalent notion in light of their new and rich ethnographies."[27]

According to anthropologist Tim Ingold, animism shares similarities with totemism but differs in its focus on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuate life, whereas 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 the Australian Aboriginals are more typically totemic in their worldview, whereas others like the Inuit are more typically animistic.[28]

From his studies into child development, Jean Piaget suggested that children were born with an innate animist worldview in which they anthropomorphized inanimate objects and that it was only later that they grew out of this belief.[29] Conversely, from her ethnographic research, Margaret Mead argued the opposite, believing that children were not born with an animist worldview but that they became acculturated to such beliefs as they were educated by their society.[29]

Stewart Guthrie saw animism—or "attribution" as he preferred it—as an evolutionary strategy to aid survival. He 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.[30] His suggested explanation, however, did not deal with the question of why such a belief became central to the religion.[31] In 2000, Guthrie suggested that the "most widespread" concept of animism was that it was the "attribution of spirits to natural phenomena such as stones and trees."[32]

## "New animism" non-archaic definitions[edit | edit source]

Many anthropologists ceased using the term animism, deeming it to be too close to early anthropological theory and religious polemic.[19] However, the term had also been claimed by religious groups—namely, Indigenous communities and nature worshippers—who felt that it aptly described their own beliefs, and who in some cases actively identified as "animists".[33] It was thus readopted by various scholars, who began using the term in a different way,[19] placing the focus on knowing how to behave toward other beings, some of whom are not human.[17] As religious studies scholar Graham Harvey stated, while the "old animist" definition had been problematic, the term animism was nevertheless "of considerable value as a critical, academic term for a style of religious and cultural relating to the world."[34]

### Hallowell and the Ojibwe[edit | edit source]

File:Hombres ojibwe.jpg

Five Ojibwe chiefs in the 19th century. It was anthropological studies of Ojibwe religion that resulted in the development of the "new animism".

The new animism emerged largely from the publications of anthropologist Irving Hallowell, produced on the basis of his ethnographic research among the Ojibwe communities of Canada in the mid-20th century.[35] For the Ojibwe encountered by Hallowell, personhood did not require human-likeness, but rather humans were perceived as being like other persons, who for instance included rock persons and bear persons.[36] For the Ojibwe, these persons were each wilful beings, who gained meaning and power through their interactions with others; through respectfully interacting with other persons, they themselves learned to "act as a person".[36]

Hallowell's approach to the understanding of Ojibwe personhood differed strongly from prior anthropological concepts of animism.[37] He emphasized the need to challenge the modernist, Western perspectives of what a person is, by entering into a dialogue with different worldwide views.[36] Hallowell's approach influenced the work of anthropologist Nurit Bird-David, who produced a scholarly article reassessing the idea of animism in 1999.[38] Seven comments from other academics were provided in the journal, debating Bird-David's ideas.[39]

### Postmodern anthropology[edit | edit source]

More recently,[when?] postmodern anthropologists are increasingly engaging with the concept of animism. Modernism is characterized by a Cartesian subject-object dualism that divides the subjective from the objective, and culture from nature. In the modernist view, animism is the inverse of scientism, and hence, is deemed inherently invalid by some anthropologists. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour, some anthropologists question modernist assumptions and theorize that all societies continue to "animate" the world around them. In contrast to Tylor's reasoning, however, this "animism" is considered to be more than just a remnant of primitive thought. More specifically, the "animism" of modernity is characterized by humanity's "professional subcultures", as in the ability to treat the world as a detached entity within a delimited sphere of activity.

Human beings continue to create personal relationships with elements of the aforementioned objective world, such as pets, cars, or teddy bears, which are recognized as subjects. As such, these entities are "approached as communicative subjects rather than the inert objects perceived by modernists."[40] These approaches aim to avoid the modernist assumption that the environment consists of a physical world distinct from the world of humans, as well as the modernist conception of the person being composed dualistically of a body and a soul.[27]

Nurit Bird-David argues that:[27]

> Positivistic ideas about the meaning of 'nature', 'life', and 'personhood' misdirected these previous attempts to understand the local concepts. Classical theoreticians (it is argued) attributed their own modernist ideas of self to 'primitive peoples' while asserting that the 'primitive peoples' read their idea of self into others!

She explains that animism is a "relational epistemology" rather than a failure of primitive reasoning. That is, self-identity among animists is based on their relationships with others, rather than any distinctive features of the "self". Instead of focusing on the essentialized, modernist self (the "individual"), persons are viewed as bundles of social relationships ("dividuals"), some of which include "superpersons" (i.e. non-humans).

Animist altar, Bozo village, Mopti, Bandiagara, Mali, in 1972

Stewart Guthrie expressed criticism of Bird-David's attitude towards animism, believing that it promulgated the view that "the world is in large measure whatever our local imagination makes it". This, he felt, would result in anthropology abandoning "the scientific project".[41]

Like Bird-David, Tim Ingold argues that animists do not see themselves as separate from their environment:[42]

> Hunter-gatherers do not, as a rule, approach their environment as an external world of nature that has to be 'grasped' intellectually … indeed the separation of mind and nature has no place in their thought and practice.

Rane Willerslev extends the argument by noting that animists reject this Cartesian dualism and that the animist self identifies with the world, "feeling at once within and apart from it so that the two glide ceaselessly in and out of each other in a sealed circuit".[43] The animist hunter is thus aware of himself as a human hunter, but, through mimicry, is able to assume the viewpoint, senses, and sensibilities of his prey, to be one with it.[44] Shamanism, in this view, is an everyday attempt to influence spirits of ancestors and animals, by mirroring their behaviors, as the hunter does its prey.

### Ethical and ecological understanding[edit | edit source]

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Cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram promotes an ethical and ecological understanding of animism, grounded in the phenomenology of sensory experience. In his books The Spell of the Sensuous, and Becoming Animal, Abram suggests that material things are never entirely passive in our direct perceptual experience, holding rather that perceived things actively "solicit our attention" or "call our focus", coaxing the perceiving body into an ongoing participation with those things.[45][46]

In the absence of intervening technologies, he suggests, sensory experience is inherently animistic in that it discloses a material field that is animate and self-organizing from the beginning. Drawing upon contemporary cognitive and natural science, as well as upon the perspectival worldviews of diverse indigenous oral cultures, Abram proposes a richly pluralist and story-based cosmology in which matter is alive. He 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.[45][46]

In contrast to a long-standing tendency in the Western social sciences, which commonly provide rational explanations of animistic experience, Abram develops an animistic account of reason itself. He holds that civilized reason is sustained only by intensely animistic participation between human beings and their own written signs. For instance, as soon as we turn our gaze toward the alphabetic letters written on a page or a screen, we "see what they say"—the letters, that is, seem to speak to us—much as spiders, trees, gushing rivers and lichen-encrusted boulders once spoke to our oral ancestors. For Abram, reading can usefully be understood as an intensely concentrated form of animism, one that effectively eclipses all of the other, older, more spontaneous forms of animistic participation in which we once engaged.

> To tell the story in this manner—to provide an animistic account of reason, rather than the other way around—is to imply that animism is the wider and more inclusive term and that oral, mimetic modes of experience still underlie, and support, all our literate and technological modes of reflection. When reflection's rootedness in such bodily, participatory modes of experience is entirely unacknowledged or unconscious, reflective reason becomes dysfunctional, unintentionally destroying the corporeal, sensuous world that sustains it.[47]

### Relation to the concept of 'I-thou'[edit | edit source]

Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey defined animism as the belief "that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others."[17] He added that it is therefore "concerned with learning how to be a good person in respectful relationships with other persons."[17]

In his Handbook of Contemporary Animism (2013), Harvey identifies the animist perspective in line with Martin Buber's "I-thou" as opposed to "I-it". In such, Harvey says, the animist takes an I-thou approach to relating to the world, whereby objects and animals are treated as a "thou", rather than as an "it".[48]

## Religion[edit | edit source]

A tableau presenting figures of various cultures filling in mediator-like roles, often being termed as "shaman" in the literature.

There is ongoing[when?] disagreement (and no general consensus) as to whether animism is merely a singular, broadly encompassing religious belief[49] or a worldview in and of itself, comprising many diverse mythologies found worldwide in many diverse cultures.[50][51] This also raises a controversy regarding the ethical claims animism may or may not make:[according to whom?] whether animism ignores questions of ethics altogether;[52] or, by endowing various non-human elements of nature with spirituality or personhood,[53] in fact promotes a complex ecological ethics.[54]

### Concepts[edit | edit source]

#### Distinction from pantheism[edit | edit source]

Animism is not the same as pantheism, although the two are sometimes confused. Moreover, some religions are 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 (monism), the way pantheists do. As a result, animism puts more emphasis on the uniqueness of each individual soul. In pantheism, everything shares the same spiritual essence, rather than having distinct spirits or souls.[55][56]

#### Fetishism / totemism[edit | edit source]

Main articles: Fetishism and Totemism

In many animistic world views, the human being is often regarded as on a roughly equal footing with other animals, plants, and natural forces.[57]

### African indigenous religions[edit | edit source]

Traditional African religions: most religious traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa, which are basically a complex form of animism with polytheistic and shamanistic elements and ancestor worship.[58]

In North Africa, the traditional Berber religion includes the traditional polytheistic, animist, and in some rare cases, shamanistic, religions of the Berber people.

### Asian origin religions[edit | edit source]

#### Indian-origin religions[edit | edit source]

Sculpture of the Buddha meditating under the Maha Bodhi Tree of Bodh Gaya in India

During Vat Purnima festival, married women tying threads around a banyan tree in India

In the Indian-origin religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, the animistic aspects of nature worship and ecological conservation are part of the core belief system.

Matsya Purana, a Hindu text, has a Sanskrit language shloka (hymn), which explains the importance of reverence of ecology. It states, "A pond equals ten wells, a reservoir equals ten ponds, while a son equals ten reservoirs, and a tree equals ten sons."[59] Indian religions worship trees such as the Bodhi Tree and numerous superlative banyan trees, conserve the sacred groves of India, revere the rivers as sacred, and worship the mountains and their ecology.

Panchavati are the sacred trees in Indic religions, which are sacred groves containing five type of trees, usually chosen from among the Vata (Ficus benghalensis, Banyan), Ashvattha (Ficus religiosa, Peepal), Bilva (Aegle marmelos, Bengal Quince), Amalaki (Phyllanthus emblica, Indian Gooseberry, Amla), Ashoka (Saraca asoca, Ashok), Udumbara (Ficus racemosa, Cluster Fig, Gular), Nimba (Azadirachta indica, Neem) and Shami (Prosopis spicigera, Indian Mesquite).[60][61]

File:Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden - Howrah 2011-01-08 9728.JPG

Thimmamma Marrimanu \- the Great Banyan tree revered by the people of Indian-origin religions such as Hinduism (including Vedic, Shaivism, Dravidian Hinduism), Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism

The banyan is considered holy in several religious traditions of India. The Ficus benghalensis is the national tree of India.[62] Vat Purnima is a Hindu festival related to the banyan tree, and is observed by married women in North India and in the Western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat.[63] For three days of the month of Jyeshtha in the Hindu calendar (which falls in May–June in the Gregorian calendar) married women observe a fast, tie threads around a banyan tree, and pray for the well-being of their husbands.[64] Thimmamma Marrimanu, sacred to Indian religions, has branches spread over five acres and was listed as the world's largest banyan tree in the Guinness World Records in 1989.[65][66]

In Hinduism, the leaf of the banyan tree is said to be the resting place for the god Krishna. In the Bhagavat Gita, Krishna said, "There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down, and the Vedic hymns are its leaves. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas." (Bg 15.1) Here the material world is described as a tree whose roots are upwards and branches are below. We have experience of a tree whose roots are upward: if one stands on the bank of a river or any reservoir of water, he can see that the trees reflected in the water are upside down. The branches go downward and the roots upward. Similarly, this material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. The material world is but a shadow of reality. In the shadow there is no reality or substantiality, but from the shadow we can understand that there is substance and reality.

In Buddhism's Pali canon, the banyan (Pali: nigrodha)[67] is referenced numerous times.[68] Typical metaphors allude to the banyan's epiphytic nature, likening the banyan's supplanting of a host tree as comparable to the way sensual desire (kāma) overcomes humans.[69]

Mun (also known as Munism or Bongthingism) is the traditional polytheistic, animist, shamanistic, and syncretic religion of the Lepcha people.[70][71][72]

#### Japan and Shinto[edit | edit source]

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Shinto is the traditional Japanese folk religion and has many animist aspects. The Ryukyuan religion of the Ryukyu islands is distinct from Shinto, but shares similar characteristics.

#### Kalash people[edit | edit source]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2021)

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Kalash people of Northern Pakistan follow an ancient animistic religion identified with an ancient form of Hinduism.[73]

#### Korea[edit | edit source]

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Muism, the native Korean belief, has many animist aspects.[74]

#### Philippines' native belief[edit | edit source]

File:A Tinguian making an offering to the guardian stones. Wellcome M0005692.jpg

A 1922 photograph of an Itneg priestess in the Philippines making an offering to an apdel, a guardian anito spirit of her village that reside in the water-worn stones known as pinaing[75]

In the indigenous religious beliefs of the Philippines, pre-colonial religions of Philippines and Philippine mythology, animism is part of their core beliefs as demonstrated by the belief in Anito and Bathala as well as their conservation and veneration of sacred Indigenous Philippine shrines, forests, mountains and sacred grounds.

Anito (lit. '[ancestor] spirit') refers to the various indigenous shamanistic folk religions of the Philippines, led by female or feminized male shamans known as babaylan. It includes belief in a spirit world existing alongside and interacting with the material world, as well as the belief that everything has a spirit, from rocks and trees to animals and humans to natural phenomena.[76][77]

In indigenous Filipino belief, the Bathala is the omnipotent deity which was derived from Sanskrit word for the Hindu supreme deity bhattara,[78][79] as one of the ten avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu.[80][81] The omnipotent Bathala also presides over the spirits of ancestors called Anito.[82][83][84][85] Anitos serve as intermediaries between mortals and the divine, such as Agni (Hindu) who holds the access to divine realms; for this reason they are invoked first and are the first to receive offerings, regardless of the deity the worshipper wants to pray to.[86][87]

#### Abrahamic religions[edit | edit source]

Animism also has influences in Abrahamic religions.

The Old Testament and the Wisdom literature preach the omnipresence of God (Jeremiah 23:24; Proverbs 15:3; 1 Kings 8:27), including the New Testament where the Father is inside all (Ephesians 4:6), and God is bodily present in the incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ. (Gospel of John 1:14, Colossians 2:9).[88] Animism is not peripheral to Christian identity but is its nurturing home ground, its axis mundi. In addition to the conceptual work the term animism performs, its insight into the relational character and common personhood of material existence.[3]

With rising awareness of ecological preservation, recently theologians like Mark I. Wallace argue for animistic Christianity with a biocentric approach that understands God being present in all earthly objects, such as animals, trees, and rocks.[89]

#### Pre-Islamic Arab religion[edit | edit source]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2021)

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Pre-Islamic Arab religion can refer to the traditional polytheistic, animist, and in some rare cases, shamanistic, religions of the peoples of the Arabian people. The belief in jinn, invisible entities akin to spirits in the Western sense dominant in the Arab religious systems, hardly fit the description of Animism in a strict sense. The jinn are considered to be analogous to the human soul by living lives like that of humans, but they are not exactly like human souls neither are they spirits of the dead.[90]: 49 It is unclear if belief in jinn derived from nomadic or sedentary populations.[90]: 51

### Neopagan and New Age movements[edit | edit source]

Some Neopagan groups, including Eco-pagans, describe themselves as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings and spirits with whom humans share the world and cosmos.[91]

The New Age movement commonly demonstrates animistic traits in asserting the existence of nature spirits.[92]

### Shamanism[edit | edit source]

Main article: Shamanism

A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.[93]

According to Mircea Eliade, shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments and illnesses by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul or spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. The shaman also enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds or dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. The shaman operates primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment.[94]

Abram, however, articulates a less supernatural and much more ecological understanding of the shaman's role than that propounded by Eliade. Drawing upon his own field research in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Americas, Abram suggests that in animistic cultures, the shaman functions primarily as an intermediary between the human community and the more-than-human community of active agencies—the local animals, plants, and landforms (mountains, rivers, forests, winds, and weather patterns, all of which are felt to have their own specific sentience). Hence, the shaman's ability to heal individual instances of dis-ease (or imbalance) within the human community is a byproduct of their more continual practice of balancing the reciprocity between the human community and the wider collective of animate beings in which that community is embedded.[95]

## Animist life[edit | edit source]

### Non-human animals[edit | edit source]

Animism entails the belief that "all living things have a soul",[This quote needs a citation] and thus, a central concern of animist thought surrounds how animals can be eaten, or otherwise used for humans' subsistence needs.[96] The actions of non-human animals are viewed as "intentional, planned and purposive",[97] and they are understood to be persons, as they are both alive, and communicate with others.[98]

In animist worldviews, non-human animals are understood to participate in kinship systems and ceremonies with humans, as well as having their own kinship systems and ceremonies.[99] Harvey cited an example of an animist understanding of animal behavior that occurred at a powwow held by the Conne River Mi'kmaq in 1996; an eagle flew over the proceedings, circling over the central drum group. The assembled participants called out kitpu ('eagle'), conveying welcome to the bird and expressing pleasure at its beauty, and they later articulated the view that the eagle's actions reflected its approval of the event, and the Mi'kmaq's return to traditional spiritual practices.[100]

### Flora[edit | edit source]

Some animists also view plant and fungi life as persons and interact with them accordingly.[101] The most common encounter between humans and these plant and fungi persons is with the former's collection of the latter for food, and for animists, this interaction typically has to be carried out respectfully.[102] Harvey cited the example of Maori communities in New Zealand, who often offer karakia invocations to sweet potatoes as they dig the latter up; while doing so there is an awareness of a kinship relationship between the Maori and the sweet potatoes, with both understood as having arrived in Aotearoa together in the same canoes.[102]

In other instances, animists believe that interaction with plant and fungi persons can result in the communication of things unknown or even otherwise unknowable.[101] Among some modern Pagans, for instance, relationships are cultivated with specific trees, who are understood to bestow knowledge or physical gifts, such as flowers, sap, or wood that can be used as firewood or to fashion into a wand; in return, these Pagans give offerings to the tree itself, which can come in the form of libations of mead or ale, a drop of blood from a finger, or a strand of wool.[103]

### The elements[edit | edit source]

Various animistic cultures also comprehend stones as persons.[104] Discussing ethnographic work conducted among the Ojibwe, Harvey noted that their society generally conceived of stones as being inanimate, but with two notable exceptions: the stones of the Bell Rocks and those stones which are situated beneath trees struck by lightning, which were understood to have become Thunderers themselves.[105] The Ojibwe conceived of weather as being capable of having personhood, with storms being conceived of as persons known as 'Thunderers' whose sounds conveyed communications and who engaged in seasonal conflict over the lakes and forests, throwing lightning at lake monsters.[105] Wind, similarly, can be conceived as a person in animistic thought.[106]

The importance of place is also a recurring element of animism, with some places being understood to be persons in their own right.[107]

### Spirits[edit | edit source]

Animism can also entail relationships being established with non-corporeal spirit entities.[108]

## Other usage[edit | edit source]

### Science[edit | edit source]

In the early 20th century, William McDougall defended a form of animism in his book Body and Mind: A History and Defence of Animism (1911).

Physicist Nick Herbert has argued for "quantum animism" in which the mind permeates the world at every level:

> The quantum consciousness assumption, which amounts to a kind of "quantum animism" likewise asserts that consciousness is an integral part of the physical world, not an emergent property of special biological or computational systems. Since everything in the world is on some level a quantum system, this assumption requires that everything be conscious on that level. If the world is truly quantum animated, then there is an immense amount of invisible inner experience going on all around us that is presently inaccessible to humans, because our own inner lives are imprisoned inside a small quantum system, isolated deep in the meat of an animal brain.[109]

Werner Krieglstein wrote regarding his quantum Animism:

> Herbert's quantum Animism differs from traditional Animism in that it avoids assuming a dualistic model of mind and matter. Traditional dualism assumes that some kind of spirit inhabits a body and makes it move, a ghost in the machine. Herbert's quantum Animism presents the idea that every natural system has an inner life, a conscious center, from which it directs and observes its action.[110]

In Error and Loss: A Licence to Enchantment,[111] Ashley Curtis (2018) has argued that the Cartesian idea of an experiencing subject facing off with an inert physical world is incoherent at its very foundation and that this incoherence is predicted rather than belied by Darwinism. Human reason (and its rigorous extension in the natural sciences) fits an evolutionary niche just as echolocation does for bats and infrared vision does for pit vipers, and is—according to western science's own dictates—epistemologically on par with, rather than superior to, such capabilities. The meaning or aliveness of the "objects" we encounter—rocks, trees, rivers, other animals—thus depends its validity not on a detached cognitive judgment, but purely on the quality of our experience. The animist experience, and the wolf's or raven's experience, thus become licensed as equally valid worldviews to the modern western scientific one; they are more valid, since they are not plagued with the incoherence that inevitably crops up[colloquialism] when "objective existence" is separated from "subjective experience."

### Socio-political impact[edit | edit source]

Harvey opined that animism's views on personhood represented a radical challenge to the dominant perspectives of modernity, because it accords "intelligence, rationality, consciousness, volition, agency, intentionality, language, and desire" to non-humans.[112] Similarly, it challenges the view of human uniqueness that is prevalent in both Abrahamic religions and Western rationalism.[113]

### Art and literature[edit | edit source]

Animist beliefs can also be expressed through artwork.[114] For instance, among the Maori communities of New Zealand, there is an acknowledgement that creating art through carving wood or stone entails violence against the wood or stone person and that the persons who are damaged therefore have to be placated and respected during the process; any excess or waste from the creation of the artwork is returned to the land, while the artwork itself is treated with particular respect.[115] Harvey, therefore, argued that the creation of art among the Maori was not about creating an inanimate object for display, but rather a transformation of different persons within a relationship.[116]

Harvey expressed the view that animist worldviews were present in various works of literature, citing such examples as the writings of Alan Garner, Leslie Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Daniel Quinn, Linda Hogan, David Abram, Patricia Grace, Chinua Achebe, Ursula Le Guin, Louise Erdrich, and Marge Piercy.[117]

Animist worldviews have also been identified in the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki.[118][119][120][121]

## See also[edit | edit source]

* Anecdotal cognitivism
* Animatism
* Anima mundi
* Ecotheology
* Hylozoism
* Mana
* Mauri (life force)
* Kaitiaki
* Panpsychism
* Religion and environmentalism
* Sacred trees
* Wildlife totemization

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### Sources[edit | edit source]

* Abram, David (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 9780679438199.
* Adler, Margot (2006) [1979]. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America (Revised ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-303819-1.
* Armstrong, Karen (1994). A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ballantine Books.
* Bird-David, Nurit (2000). ""Animism" Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology". Current Anthropology. 41 (S1): 67–91. doi:10.1086/200061.
* Curtis, Ashley (2018). Error and Loss: A Licence to Enchantment. Zürich: Kommode Verlag.
* Dean, Bartholomew (2009). Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3378-5.
* Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe (2003). Ideas that Changed the World. Dorling Kindersley.
* Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2012). "Lamphun's Little-Known Animal Shrines (Animist traditions in Thailand)". Ancient Chiang Mai. Vol. 1\. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books.
* Guthrie, Stewart (2000). "On Animism". Current Anthropology. 41 (1): 106–107. doi:10.1086/300107. JSTOR 10.1086/300107. PMID 10593728. S2CID 224796411.
* Harvey, Graham (2005). Animism: Respecting the Living World. London: Hurst & Co. ISBN 978-0-231-13701-0.
* Insoll, Timothy (2004). Archaeology, Ritual, Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-25312-3.
* Lonie, Alexander Charles Oughter (1878). "Animism" . In Baynes, T. S. (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 55–57.
* Segal, Robert (2004). Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
* Willerslev, Rane (2007). Soul Hunters: Hunting, animism, and personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520252172.
* "Animism". The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). Bartleby.com Inc. 2007. Archived from the original on 9 February 2007.

## Further reading[edit | edit source]

* Abram, David. 2010. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (New York: Pantheon Books)
* Badenberg, Robert. 2007. "How about 'Animism'? An Inquiry beyond Label and Legacy." In Mission als Kommunikation: Festschrift für Ursula Wiesemann zu ihrem 75, Geburtstag, edited by K. W. Müller. Nürnberg: VTR (ISBN 978-3-937965-75-8) and Bonn: VKW (ISBN 978-3-938116-33-3).
* Hallowell, Alfred Irving. 1960. "Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and world view." In Culture in History, edited by S. Diamond. (New York: Columbia University Press).
* Reprint: 2002. Pp. 17–49 in Readings in Indigenous Religions, edited by G. Harvey. London: Continuum.
* Harvey, Graham. 2005. Animism: Respecting the Living World. London: Hurst & Co.
* Ingold, Tim. 2006. "Rethinking the animate, re-animating thought." Ethnos 71(1):9–20.
* Käser, Lothar. 2004. Animismus. Eine Einführung in die begrifflichen Grundlagen des Welt- und Menschenbildes traditionaler (ethnischer) Gesellschaften für Entwicklungshelfer und kirchliche Mitarbeiter in Übersee. Bad Liebenzell: Liebenzeller Mission. ISBN 3-921113-61-X.
* mit dem verkürzten Untertitel Einführung in seine begrifflichen Grundlagen auch bei: Erlanger Verlag für Mission und Okumene, Neuendettelsau 2004, ISBN 3-87214-609-2
* Quinn, Daniel. [1996] 1997. The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. New York: Bantam Books.
* Thomas, Northcote Whitridge (1911). "Anet" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 53–55.
* Wundt, Wilhelm. 1906. Mythus und Religion, Teil II. Leipzig 1906 (Völkerpsychologie II)

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Contemporary|

| Analytic|

* Applied ethics
* Analytic feminism
* Analytical Marxism
* Communitarianism
* Consequentialism
* Critical rationalism
* Experimental philosophy
* Falsificationism
* Foundationalism / Coherentism
* Internalism and externalism
* Logical positivism
* Legal positivism
* Normative ethics
* Meta-ethics
* Moral realism
* Quinean naturalism
* Ordinary language philosophy
* Postanalytic philosophy
* Quietism
* Rawlsian
* Reformed epistemology
* Systemics
* Scientism
* Scientific realism
* Scientific skepticism
* Transactionalism
* Contemporary utilitarianism
* Vienna Circle
* Wittgensteinian

|

Continental|

* Critical theory
* Deconstruction
* Existentialism
* Feminist
* Frankfurt School
* New Historicism
* Hermeneutics
* Neo-Marxism
* Phenomenology
* Posthumanism
* Postmodernism
* Post-structuralism
* Social constructionism
* Structuralism
* Western Marxism

Other|

* Kyoto School
* Objectivism
* Postcritique
* Russian cosmism
* more...

Positions

| Aesthetics|

* Formalism
* Institutionalism
* Aesthetic response

|

Epistemology|

* Empiricism
* Fideism
* Naturalism
* Particularism
* Rationalism
* Skepticism
* Solipsism

Ethics|

* Consequentialism
* Deontology
* Virtue

Free will|

* Compatibilism
* Determinism
* Hard
* Incompatibilism
* Hard
* Libertarianism

Metaphysics|

* Atomism
* Dualism
* Idealism
* Monism
* Naturalism
* Realism

Mind|

* Behaviorism
* Emergentism
* Eliminativism
* Epiphenomenalism
* Functionalism
* Objectivism
* Subjectivism

Normativity|

* Absolutism
* Particularism
* Relativism
* Nihilism
* Skepticism
* Universalism

Ontology|

* Action
* Event
* Process

Reality|

* Anti-realism
* Conceptualism
* Idealism
* Materialism
* Naturalism
* Nominalism
* Physicalism
* Realism

* By region
* Related lists
* Miscellaneous

| By region|

| African|

* Bantu
* Egyptian
* Ethiopian

|

Eastern|

* Chinese
* Indian
* Indonesian
* Japanese
* Korean
* Pakistani
* Taiwanese
* Vietnamese

Middle Eastern|

* Iranian
* Jewish
* Turkish

Western|

* American
* Australian
* British
* Scottish
* Canada
* Czech
* Danish
* Dutch
* French
* German
* Greek
* Italian
* Maltese
* Polish
* Slovene
* Spanish

Miscellaneous|

* Amerindian
* Aztec
* Romanian
* Russian
* Yugoslav

Lists|

* Glossary
* Index
* Movements
* Outline
* Philosophers
* Problems
* Publications
* Schools
* Years

Miscellaneous|

* Applied philosophy
* Natural law
* Sage
* Theoretical philosophy / Practical philosophy
* Women in philosophy

* '
* Category

* v
* t
* e

Philosophy of religion

Concepts in religion|

* Afterlife
* Euthyphro dilemma
* Faith
* or religious belief
* Intelligent design
* Miracle
* Problem of evil
* Soul
* Spirit
* Theodicy
* Theological veto

Conceptions of God|

* Brahman
* Demiurge
* Divine simplicity
* Egoism
* Holy Spirit
* Misotheism
* Pandeism
* Personal god
* Process theology
* Supreme Being
* Unmoved mover

God in|

* Abrahamic religions
* Buddhism
* Christianity
* Hinduism
* Islam
* Jainism
* Judaism
* Mormonism
* Sikhism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Wicca

Existence of God|

| For|

* Beauty
* Christological
* Consciousness
* Cosmological
* Kalam
* Contingency
* Degree
* Desire
* Experience
* Fine-tuning of the universe
* Love
* Miracles
* Morality
* Necessary existent
* Ontological
* Pascal's wager
* Proper basis
* Reason
* Teleological
* Natural law
* Watchmaker analogy
* Transcendental

|

Against|

* 747 gambit
* Atheist's Wager
* Evil
* Free will
* Hell
* Inconsistent revelations
* Nonbelief
* Noncognitivism
* Occam's razor
* Omnipotence
* Poor design
* Russell's teapot

Theology|

* Acosmism
* Agnosticism
* Animism
* Antireligion
* Atheism
* Creationism
* Dharmism
* Deism
* Demonology
* Divine command theory
* Dualism
* Esotericism
* Exclusivism
* Existentialism
* Christian
* Atheistic
* Feminist theology
* Thealogy
* Womanist theology
* Fideism
* Fundamentalism
* Gnosticism
* Henotheism
* Humanism
* Religious
* Secular
* Christian
* Inclusivism
* Theories about religions
* Monism
* Monotheism
* Mysticism
* Naturalism
* Metaphysical
* Religious
* Humanistic
* New Age
* Nondualism
* Nontheism
* Pandeism
* Panentheism
* Pantheism
* Perennialism
* Polytheism
* Possibilianism
* Process theology
* Religious skepticism
* Spiritualism
* Shamanism
* Taoic
* Theism
* Transcendentalism
* more...

Religious language|

* Eschatological verification
* Language game
* Logical positivism
* Apophatic theology
* Verificationism

Problem of evil|

* Augustinian theodicy
* Best of all possible worlds
* Euthyphro dilemma
* Inconsistent triad
* Irenaean theodicy
* Natural evil
* Theodicy

Philosophers
of religion

(by date active)|

| Ancient and
medieval|

* Anselm of Canterbury
* Augustine of Hippo
* Avicenna
* Averroes
* Boethius
* Erasmus
* Gaudapada
* Gaunilo of Marmoutiers
* Pico della Mirandola
* Heraclitus
* King James VI and I
* Marcion of Sinope
* Maimonides
* Adi Shankara
* Thomas Aquinas

|

Early modern|

* Augustin Calmet
* René Descartes
* Blaise Pascal
* Baruch Spinoza
* Nicolas Malebranche
* Gottfried W Leibniz
* William Wollaston
* Thomas Chubb
* David Hume
* Baron d'Holbach
* Immanuel Kant
* Johann G Herder

1800
1850|

* Friedrich Schleiermacher
* Karl C F Krause
* Georg W F Hegel

* Thomas Carlyle
* William Whewell
* Ludwig Feuerbach
* Søren Kierkegaard
* Karl Marx
* Albrecht Ritschl
* Afrikan Spir

1880
1900|

* Ernst Haeckel
* W K Clifford
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Harald Høffding
* William James

* Vladimir Solovyov
* Ernst Troeltsch
* Rudolf Otto
* Lev Shestov
* Sergei Bulgakov
* Pavel Florensky
* Ernst Cassirer
* Joseph Maréchal

1920
postwar|

* George Santayana
* Bertrand Russell
* Martin Buber
* René Guénon
* Paul Tillich
* Karl Barth
* Emil Brunner
* Rudolf Bultmann
* Gabriel Marcel
* Reinhold Niebuhr

* Charles Hartshorne
* Mircea Eliade
* Frithjof Schuon
* J L Mackie
* Walter Kaufmann
* Martin Lings
* Peter Geach
* George I Mavrodes
* William Alston
* Antony Flew

1970
1990
2010|

* William L Rowe
* Dewi Z Phillips
* Alvin Plantinga
* Anthony Kenny
* Nicholas Wolterstorff
* Richard Swinburne
* Robert Merrihew Adams
* Ravi Zacharias
* Peter van Inwagen
* Daniel Dennett
* Loyal Rue
* Jean-Luc Marion
* William Lane Craig
* Ali Akbar Rashad

* Alexander Pruss

Related topics|

* Criticism of religion
* Desacralization of knowledge
* Ethics in religion
* Exegesis
* History of religion
* Religion
* Religious language
* Religious philosophy
* Relationship between religion and science
* Faith and rationality
* more...

* Portal
* Category

* v
* t
* e

Witchcraft and magic

Types|

| Region|

* Africa
* Witch smeller
* Asia
* Kulam
* Australasia
* Makutu
* Europe
* Akelarre
* Benandanti
* Chaos magic
* Cunning folk
* Greece and Rome
* Medieval
* Renaissance
* Seiðr
* Völva
* White witch
* Witch-cult hypothesis
* Latin America

|

Form|

* Solitary practitioner
* Warlock
* Wicca
* Witch doctor

Practices|

* Animism
* Apotropaic magic
* Black magic
* Ceremonial magic
* Magical formula
* Coven
* Curse
* Anathema
* Damnation
* Jinx
* Demon
* Divination
* Entheogen
* Evocation
* Familiar
* Flying ointment
* Goetia
* Gray magic
* Incantation
* Jinn
* Love magic
* Magic circle
* Mediumship
* Moon magic
* Necromancy
* Occultism
* Poppet
* Potions
* Shamanism
* Black
* Regional
* Yellow
* Sigils
* Spiritism
* Spiritualism
* Sympathetic magic
* Witch ball
* Witch's ladder
* Witches' Sabbath
* White magic

Objects|

* Amulet
* Broom
* besom
* Cloak of invisibility
* Grimoire
* Kitchen witch
* Love charm
* Magic carpet
* Magic ring
* Magical weapons
* Magic sword
* Sator Square
* Talisman
* Wand

Folklore and
mythology|

* Agamede
* Aradia
* Baba Yaga
* Circe
* Dayan
* Drude
* Elbow witch
* Hecate
* Huld
* Kalku
* Medea
* Morgan le Fay
* Muma Pădurii
* Nine sorceresses
* Obayifo
* Pasiphaë
* Sebile
* Sorginak
* Spearfinger
* Three Witches
* Witch of Endor

Regional|

* Anglo-Saxon England
* Britain
* Ghana
* Italy

Major
historic treatises|

* Witchcraft and divination in the Old Testament (8th–2nd centuries BC)
* Directorium Inquisitorum (1376)
* De maleficis mulieribus (1440)
* Formicarius (1475)
* Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484)
* Malleus Maleficarum (1487)
* De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus (1489)
* Laienspiegel (1509)
* De praestigiis daemonum (1563)
* The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
* Newes from Scotland (1591)
* A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts (1593)
* Daemonolatreiae libri tres (1595)
* Daemonologie (1597)
* Magical Investigations (1599)
* Compendium Maleficarum (1608)
* A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)
* The Discovery of Witches (1647)
* Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)

Persecution|

* Witch-hunt
* accusations against children

In popular culture|

* Witches in fiction

Related|

* Witch (word)
* Maleficium
* Left-hand path and right-hand path

* v
* t
* e

Paganism (and modern paganism)

* Animism
* Panentheism
* Pantheism
* Polytheism

Historical
ethnic religions
(existing and
extinct)|

Asian

* Ainu
* Altaic: Manchu
* Mongolian
* Tengrism
* Turkic
* Austroasiatic: Sarnaism
* Vietnamese
* Austronesian: Batak
* Dayak (Momolianism)
* Javanese
* Malay
* Philippine
* Tagalog
* Sumbese
* Sundanese
* Chinese
* Indian:
* Dravidian
* Tamil
* Hinduism
* Kalash
* Punjabi
* Puranas
* Vedic
* Japanese: Ryukyuan
* Korean
* Miao
* Tai: Ahom
* Mo
* Satsana Phi
* Tibeto-Burmese: Bathouism
* Benzhuism
* Bimoism
* Bon
* Bongthingism
* Burmese
* Donyi-Polo
* Heraka
* Kiratism
* Qiang
* Sanamahism

European

* Albanian
* Anatolian
* Hittite
* Lydian
* Phrygian
* Armenian
* Baltic
* Old Prussian
* Latvian
* Lithuanian
* Basque
* Caucasian
* Circassian
* Georgian
* Ossetian
* Vainakh
* Celtic
* Druidism
* Irish
* Etruscan
* Germanic
* Anglo-Saxon
* Frankish
* Gothic
* Norse
* Seiðr
* Greek
* Hellenistic religion
* Hero cult
* Sacred mysteries
* Eleusinian
* Orphic
* Samothracian
* Iberian/Celtiberian
* Cantabrian
* Castro culture/Proto Gallaecian-Lusitanian
* Gallaecian
* Lusitanian
* Italic
* Camunnian
* Ligurian
* Umbrian
* Minoan
* Nuragic
* Paleo-Balkan
* Dacian
* Illyrian
* Thracian
* Roman
* Cult of Magna Mater
* Gallo-Roman religion
* Imperial cult
* Mithraism
* Mysteries of Isis
* Scythian
* Slavic
* Uralic
* Estonian
* Finnish
* Hungarian
* Mari
* Sami

Middle-Eastern & North African

* Ancient Near Eastern: Hurrian
* Egyptian
* Mesopotamian
* Babylonian
* Sumerian
* Semitic
* Arabian
* Canaanite
* Iranian:
* Persian
* North African: Berber
* Punic

Oceanian & Pacific Islander

* Australian
* Melanesian
* Micronesian
* Nauruan
* Papuan
* Polynesian
* Cook Islander
* Hawaiian
* Māori
* Rapa Nui
* Tahitian
* Tongan

Sub-Saharan African

* Akan
* Bantu
* Bushongo
* Kongo
* Lozi
* Zulu
* Dahomean
* Dinka
* Efik
* Hausa
* Lugbara
* Maasai
* Malagasy
* Mbuti
* Odinani
* San
* Serer
* Somali

Modern pagan
movements|

Ethnic

* African
* Ausar Auset
* Godianism
* American
* Mexicayotl
* Native American Church
* Armenian
* Baltic
* Dievturība
* Romuva
* Caucasian
* Abkhaz
* Circassian
* Ossetian
* Celtic
* Canarian
* Germanic
* Hellenism
* Hindu
* Italo-Roman
* Kemetic
* Romanian (Zalmoxianism)
* Semitic
* Slavic
* Turko-Mongolic
* Altay
* Chuvash
* Uralic
* Estonian
* Finnish
* Hungarian
* Mordvin
* Udmurt

Other

* Contemporary witchcraft: Cochranianism
* Feri
* Stregheria
* Wicca
* Druidry
* European Congress of Ethnic Religions
* Goddess movement
* Neoshamanism
* Reconstructionist
* Secular paganism

Myth and ritual|

* Ancestral Cult
* Bear worship
* Blót
* Burial Mounds
* Dying and rising deity
* Ethos
* Folklore
* Idolatry
* Magic and religion
* Megaliths
* Dolmens
* Menhirs
* Stone Alignments
* Myth and ritual
* Mythology
* Orthopraxy
* Reincarnation
* Religion and mythology
* Ritual
* Sacred grove
* Sacred Wells
* Sacrifice
* animal
* human
* Sorcery
* Sacred Trees
* Tree of life
* World tree
* Totemism
* Virtue
* Witchcraft
* Worship of animals

Christianization|

* Christianity and Paganism
* Christianization of saints and feasts
* Constantinian shift
* Neoplatonism
* Religio licita
* Virtuous pagan

* v
* t
* e

Spiritualism and spiritism

History and beliefs|

* Apport
* Automatic writing
* Cross-Correspondences
* Ectoplasm
* Faith healing
* Materialization
* Mediumship
* Séance
* Spirit guides
* Spiritual healing
* Spirit obsession
* Spirit photography
* Spirit possession
* Spirit world
* Table-turning
* Theism

Spiritualists|

* Derek Acorah
* Rosemary Altea
* Dan Aykroyd
* Charles Bailey
* Bangs Sisters
* Ada Besinnet
* Stephen E. Braude
* William Breeze
* Rosemary Brown
* Sylvia Browne
* Eva Carrière
* Doris Collins
* Florence Cook
* Mina Crandon
* William Crookes
* Geraldine Cummins
* Pearl Curran
* Frank Decker
* Arthur Conan Doyle
* Helen Duncan
* Eddy Brothers
* Harry Edwards
* John Edward
* William Eglinton
* Colin Evans
* Fox sisters
* Leslie Flint
* Arthur Ford
* Colin Fry
* Eileen Garrett
* Kathleen Goligher
* Rita Goold
* Jan Guzyk
* Robert Hare
* Alec Harris
* Gordon Higginson
* Richard Hodgson
* Daniel Dunglas Home
* Elizabeth Hope
* William Hope
* Swami Laura Horos
* Cecil Husk
* James H. Hyslop
* Allan Kardec
* Franek Kluski
* Gladys Osborne Leonard
* Oliver Lodge
* Heinrich Melzer
* Carmine Mirabelli
* Francis Ward Monck
* William Usborne Moore
* Lorin Morgan-Richards
* William Stainton Moses
* Einer Nielsen
* Eusapia Palladino
* Leonora Piper
* Ethel Post-Parrish
* James Van Praagh
* Bert Reese
* Estelle Roberts
* Jane Roberts
* William Roy
* Rudi Schneider
* Maria Silbert
* Henry Slade
* Doris Stokes
* Emanuel Swedenborg
* Rosina Thompson
* Stanisława Tomczyk
* Ena Twigg
* George Valiantine
* Jack Webber
* Etta Wriedt
* Chico Xavier

Organizations|

* List of Spiritualist organizations
* Spiritualist churches
* Spiritist centres
* London Spiritualist Alliance
* National Spiritualist Association of Churches
* Spiritualists' National Union
* Spiritualist Association of Great Britain
* Spiritual church movement
* Arthur Findlay College
* International Spiritualist Federation

Skeptics|

* David Abbott
* John Henry Anderson
* George Miller Beard
* Ruth Brandon
* Lionel Branson
* Derren Brown
* William Carpenter
* Milbourne Christopher
* Edward Clodd
* Edmund Smith Conklin
* Millais Culpin
* Stuart Cumberland
* Eric Dingwall
* Joseph Dunninger
* Henry Evans
* Chris French
* Martin Gardner
* G. Stanley Hall
* Trevor H. Hall
* William A. Hammond
* C. E. M. Hansel
* Carlos María de Heredia
* Carl Hertz
* Terence Hines
* Harry Houdini
* Joseph Jastrow
* Stanley LeFevre Krebs
* Rose Mackenberg
* David Marks
* John Nevil Maskelyne
* Henry Maudsley
* Joseph McCabe
* Henry C. McComas
* Georgess McHargue
* Charles Arthur Mercier
* Albert Moll
* John Mulholland
* Fulton Oursler
* Joe Nickell
* E. Clephan Palmer
* Ronald Pearsall
* Frank Podmore
* Massimo Polidoro
* Harry Price
* Julien Proskauer
* James Randi
* Donovan Rawcliffe
* Joseph F. Rinn
* C. E. Bechhofer Roberts
* Chung Ling Soo
* Gordon Stein
* Amy Tanner
* Ivor Lloyd Tuckett
* Lyttelton Winslow
* Richard Wiseman

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