Differences between Animism and organized religion?

[Buddha Dharma]

That is the question. I wonder how the emphasis on spirits and such makes Animism different, but I've seen scholars put it in a category all it's own.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Truly animism is very vague because my own polytheism can be taken as animism as I truly do associate gods to various things BUT animism does have a more precise concept in that animists believe particular items contain a spirit unique to it. So there is no pervading spirit that resides over or within all trees but every tree has a unique spirit.

Most religions remove this and have gods preside over things or concepts. Monotheists have a world spirit typically while polytheists have gods who reside over abstracts, places, things or human concepts like love.

 

[Politesse]

Hello! There isn't necessarily a difference, as there have been many animist religions and certainly some that you would call "organized"; Shinto, in Japan, or Vodun, in West Africa, might be good examples of essentially animist traditions that nevertheless had organized priesthoods. Most animist traditions do not, but this is in part because animism has most often thrived in cultural eras and regions where the scale of society was small and no leaders above the level of clan and family were ever needed. Indeed, the spirits themselves often play a critical role in organizing family and political life! And it is to be expected that, as emissary between the ancestral spirits now passed on and their living children, the patriarch or matriarch of a family is responsible for much of its spiritual life and well-being. It is only where population grows large and power accumulates that a government will begin to get involved in the organization of spirituality.

I would agree that, in a sense, animism is in a category of its own, because it does not fit models of "religion" that are based on theism. Spirits may have much power, but not authority in the same sense that a pantheon of Gods would; contact with them often takes the form of a negotiation rather than a dictation of terms, and in societies with a shamanic tradition, it is not uncommon to hear a shaman referred to as a "master of spirits". A theist clergyman would never dare to call themselves a "master of gods", I think! The animist world is often a dangerous one, with no guarantee of goodwill being extended toward humanity necessarily; with such a cosmology, we have to be more assertive and individualistic in seeking guarantees of safety, healing, or material success, and place the majority of trust in those persons with whom our family already has a connection.

That said, I am more familiar with the ethnographic record and the way animism works in traditional cultures, than in the contemporary, urban revivals that have become popular in the last century. I would be most curious to hear some voices on the nature of animism in such movements.

 

[David T]

That is the question. I wonder how the emphasis on spirits and such makes Animism different, but I've seen scholars put it in a category all it's own.

Are we talking belief or experience here?

 

[Buddha Dharma]

Are we talking belief or experience here?

I'm open to both. I believe reality is open-ended.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

That is the question. I wonder how the emphasis on spirits and such makes Animism different, but I've seen scholars put it in a category all it's own.

Animism is a way of being religious--it is not by itself a religion.

A big part of the problem--from my perspective as an animist in a Western society--is that when most people are curious about animism, they go read a dictionary definition or some of the classic anthropological or sociological authors...from, say, sometime in the 1800s up to the 1980s...and say, "Oh, it's Belief in Supernatural Spirit Beings."

Mostly, animism is not about "beliefs," it's about practices. Second, "supernatural" is a concept of Western culture; there's nothing outside "natural." Third, Western people think "spirits" means ghosts or souls or gods--and sometimes that is what's meant...but probably not in the way that Western thought constructs such things. Finally, Western thought sees lots of dichotomies, such as body/spirit, or animate/inanimate, that most animists don't really agree with.

 

[David T]

I'm open to both. I believe reality is open-ended.

All religions at their core experientially are animistic, nature alive. The inner aligns with the external. The sense of objectivity is shift from the individual to the landscape.

The idea of animism being a belief is a product of the dysfunctionalism of the brain self labebed "higher functioning". So if you read Wikipedia it's described as a belief. It can be a belief, in that the individual has a sense that yes nature is big and alive. Maybe how they understand it is not well articulated but hey that's true for most people. Nature was only understood alive 10,000 years ago. In regards all the above I am an animistic but it has nothing to do with belief its how I experience all the time. Ok most of the time!! When I am in the city it can fade. Nature is home me not house.