From the most remote archaic depths, when people only began to learn the universe, animism arose, as an early form of religion. Nature is alive and everything contains spirit or soul: an object, a stone, an animal, a person. So ancient people believed in all corners of the planet Earth.
Animism - what is it?
The English ethnographer E. Tyler assumed that all the religions that existed to date came from the animistic views of man. In Latin, animism is anima, animus is soul or spirit. Faith in the spiritualised beginning or supernatural twin of all living and nonliving in nature. The soul and spirit are substances that are not visible to the human eye, and if the soul is connected with the material substance in which it is located, the spirit is an independent energy free in its stay wherever and whenever.
When and why did animism arise?
When animism arose - it is difficult for historians to track down this process, but it was more likely at the transitional stage of Neanderthal development in a reasonable man, about 40 thousand years ago. Early ancestors of animism were magic, fetishism , animatism and totemism. People knew little about nature, and could not explain many of the phenomena that existed in it, so all were endowed with supernatural abilities and believed in kinship with the totem animals of their community.
Animism, which replaced totemism, was based on centuries of experience of observation:
- dreams (the spirit travels through the worlds);
- the state during the ritual application of psychotropic plants;
- funeral rites (the soul left the body).
Animism in philosophy
The philosophical schools that originated in ancient Greece were multidirectional in thinking, propagandized values and teachings. The school of animism, headed by a mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, preached a teaching aimed at careful interaction with nature, in which you do not touch - the spirit is everywhere imprinted. Animism in philosophy is the knowledge of the immortality of the soul of any being: be it a plant, an animal or a human being. Everything contains souls of the same order from fire and air, and in subsequent incarnations the soul invariably follows the new body given to it.
Animism in Psychology
Psychology as an independent discipline was formed relatively recently and the emergence of its prerequisites can be considered the entire world's centuries-old experience of people in the knowledge of their souls. Animism in psychology is a picture of the world in which all the existing reality is "spiritualized" and has feelings and emotions . The psychology of animism is vividly expressed in the phenomenon of children's thinking, discovered by the Swiss psychologist-philosopher J. Piaget. The child believes that if he feels, then everything that surrounds him has feelings. Children's animism - features:
- Evaluation of children as inanimate objects as animate.
- A moving object reinforces the animistic representation of the child, while the underlying can be perceived as inanimate.
- The peak of animistic thinking is 5 years (fading to 7 years of age).
Animism as a religion
In fear of the powerful and incomprehensible phenomena of nature, ancient people began to deify them. Animism is the belief in the existence of souls and spirits that permeate everything that is in the world. Lightning and thunder, sun and moon, rain, snow and hail - a person so small and defenseless before the elements, begins to coax strong spirits and sacrifice them to try to placate.
Watching the birth and death, a person suggested that at the time of the birth of the child, the soul enters into it, and at the time of death, she leaves the body with her breath. The ancients believed that the spirit of the deceased remains in the ethereal shell and does not leave the tribe's clan. The cult of commemoration and honors of souls pursued the goal of making the spirit of the tribesman a protector and patron of the evil forces of the other world.
Animism in the myths of ancient Greece helps historians to study the thinking of people of that period. Bright images of the gods, formed over time from an understanding of the nature and functions that carry natural phenomena:
- Zeus - controls thunder and lightning, spills to the ground with rain.
- Gaia (earth) - gives birth to huge stone giants (earthquakes, rockfalls).
- Hades (Thanatos) is the lord of the underworld, taking away souls.
Animism in the modern world
In different parts of the Earth tribes remained that remained adherents of animism - these are small peoples, with an ancient way of life. In the North and in Siberia, they are Evenks, Khanty, Nanais, Udegeans. Modern animism is based on the remnants of ancient beliefs:
- traditions and rites of veneration and commemoration of ancestors;
- beguiling House (the essence of the house);
- shamanic techniques for the return of the soul to the body (with diseases of the psychic sense).
Animism - interesting facts
Animism is a belief in spirits and essences, as ancient religion left a huge cultural footprint in the history of mankind. Originated ancient myths of Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt - this is a world treasury of knowledge of the world's human heritage. Animism, which grew out of the primitive ideas of a person about the soul, flowed into more perfect forms of beliefs, but in some aspects it has survived to this day in pagan holidays.
Interesting facts related to animism:
- The great mathematician Pythagoras is the first vegetarian, he forbade the pupils of animals, because of the presence of their souls exactly the same as in man.
- A small child in his early animistic notions, thinks that when he goes, the moon "runs" after him.
- Koryaks (the indigenous people of Kamchatka), having killed a wolf or a bear on the hunt, put a skin on one of the hunters, they dance around him and sing a song in which they assure that they are not to blame for the death of the animal, and the fault in this "some Russian" . The purpose of the rite is to redirect the wrath of the soul of the dead beast.
- The people of the island of Fiji believe that the souls of broken tools (axes, knives) fly to the gods for further service.