ANIMISM

 

ANIMISM

by Mudarras Kadhir Gaznavi

WHY DOES PHILOSOPHY HAVE A DIFFERENT DEFINITION FOR THE 'SOUL' ?

I have referred to animism in a short paragraph on the Taboo and Totemism page. The word to keep in mind is anima, 'breath' or 'soul'. Animism is the doctrine of the existence of souls. In other words 'there is a spirit in everything.'

• The view of biology and psychology is, 'Mind or soul is an immaterial element that cooperates with the body through the brain and nervous system'.

• But philosophy theorizes that 'all natural objects are animate, ensouled or spirit-directed from within, and that mental and physical life has as its source or ground soul, or spirit.'  

Do you know why the philosophy emphasizes the soul-anima? What is the cause of this difference of opinion between biology and psychology on the one hand and philosophy on the other? The clue exists in the meaning of philosophy: 'A pursuit of wisdom. A search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means. An analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs.' If you add to this the meaning of to 'philosophize', you will have a clearer picture: 'To expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy. To consider from or bring into conformity with a philosophic point of view.' So philosophy pursues wisdom, general understanding of values and reality. How does it do this? By speculative rather than observational means. If there is nothing to observe in the quantitative and/or qualitative sense, and if it has to analyse the grounds of and the concepts expressing fundamental beliefs it has to have a dimension which would link the material to the incorporeal, because it has to expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy. That dimension is the soul or the spirit. Philosophy has to find a way to explain this thing called the incorporeal and all the other subjects related to it. It is still trying. To no avail! That is the reason behind this difference of opinion.

 

 EVERYTHING IS ALIVE WITH SPIRITS

Animism probably will always be known chiefly as the term used by Sir Edward Tylor. In Primitive Culture he used this term to describe his theory on the origin of religion and the beliefs of primitive peoples. Tylor wrote his great work to prove that religion began with animism. Animism is the attribution of a soul or spirit to living things and inanimate objects. Animism maintains that nothing is really inanimate; everything is alive with spirit, active or not. According to Tylor 'thinking men yet at a low level of culture were deeply impressed by two groups of biological problems:'

• What was it that made the difference between a living body and a dead one, and what caused waking, sleep, trance, disease and death?

• What were those human shapes which appeared in dreams and visions?

 

'GHOST SOUL'

Looking at these two phenomena, Tylor wrote, 'the ancient savage philosophers probably made their first step by the obvious inference that every man has two things belonging to him, namely a life and a phantom.' Both life and phantom are perceived to be separable from the body: Life was perceived as able to go away and leave it insensible or dead; and the phantom is perceived as appearing to people at a distance. And according to Tylor the second step taken by 'the ancient savage philosophers' was to combine the life and phantom and thus arrive at 'that well-known conception which may be described as an apparitional soul, a 'ghost-soul'. As Tylor argued, in further steps of reasoning it was thought that the ghost soul was able to enter into, possess and act in the bodies of beasts, birds, reptiles and plants. But that's not all. The theory of souls stretches beyond this limit: 'Certain high savage races distinctly hold and others making more or less close approach to, a theory of separable and surviving souls or spirits belonging to sticks and stones, weapons, boats, food, clothes, ornaments and other objects which to us are not merely soulless but lifeless.' As I wrote earlier 'there are spirits in everything.'

So what is a belief system within this framework? It is an attempt by man to establish a relationship between himself and the spirits which he felt 'possessed, pervaded, crowded' all nature.

R.R. Marett in l899 and later in his book The Threshold of Religion (1914) brought in two qualifications to Tylor's theory. Marett, limited the primitive's conception of aliveness to objects that behave in an unusual way or queerly or that seem about to behave thus; such objects the primitive tends to regard as sacred, full of special potency. So not everything was considered to be 'alive.' And secondly Marett maintained that this special potency or aliveness would not necessarily lead primitive man to attribute a soul or spirit to the object. The object might be animated or alive without necessarily having a soul or spirit inside it. The sophisticated distinction between the body of the object and its soul was at first not drawn. Marett called this animatism or pre-animism. Melanesian example led him to this view, where mana, not a soul but  'a kind of communicable energy ' distinct from physical power was involved. Marett was sure that while animism is characteristic of primitive peoples it is accompanied, and probably preceded by animatism.

 

GHOSTS DO TRAVEL (!)

All this may have created a confusion in your head. So we shall move over to simpler(!) and more straightforward points:

Believers in animism attribute a soul or spirit to all sorts of objects (This soul is separable from the physical shell or container - the body they inhabit - and destined to survive the destruction or dissolution of it.  This belief is an essential part of their medicine, magic and religion. Animals, human beings, and certain individual objects have souls, as long as they are 'alive'. After death or departure from the body, souls become spirits or ghosts, until they enter another body. Don't you think that this belief could be the origin of our seeing 'ghosts, ghouls, spirits' etc.? Furthermore this belief may be the origin of incarnation, reincarnation, transmigration of souls etc.

In case of invading or possessing souls shaman or medicine man exorcised the invading soul or spirit.

Ancestor worship and animism are interrelated phenomena. The souls of the dead are believed to survive the dissolution of their bodies to linger near the scene of their former lives and to depend on the living for food, remembrance and loyalty. This has been the basic factor in the popular religion of China for 3000 years.

Animism is also an aspect of nature worship. The object of worship may be far above the category of souls or spirits - some  supreme being or initiator of all things.

Interspersed with my questions and comments this is animism.