Eoten

Animist poet

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Atheistic Animism

Animism has a radically different relationship with deities than most religions.

Many of the living animistic traditions include tales of Gods and Goddesses, and other non-human deities that can be honoured, worked with or relied up by the practitioner.

Ancient records of animist practice show a deep reverence for a variety of spiritual beings from animals to volcanoes, ancestral humans to creator beings. And many modern Western animists now consider themselves pagan, centring their practice around ancestral deities from the Celtic and Norse pantheons.

But animism doesn’t require the belief in or worship of a deity; there are no rules about what or how to worship, or even that worship must be performed. There are vast numbers of animists that work with no supreme being or deity, but rather consider the spirits of the land to be equal to humans, or simply different.

The Western idea of theism and worship is deeply informed by our religious heritage, which frames all spiritual or non-human beings as ‘Gods’ (competing the with ‘one true God’ of the monotheistic faith) or their servants.

It is a strictly hierarchical view of the spiritual realm, with humans at the bottom in terms of power, value and wisdom. Worship is something that is demanded or required, and the relationship is usually formal, un-equal and placative.

But in animism, this conception of deities and worship becomes untenable; the Gods of a land or a people may or may not be pertinent to a particular animist. The deities are often approachable, fallible, flawed or uninterested. They can be equals to us, and we can relate with them as kin rather than authoritative or punitive figures.

This is a completely different view of theism, one that is more spacious and that rapidly dissolves into something incomparable to theism.

Once we apply the practical, experiential values of animism, it’s relationship to the Gods becomes even more distinct from the theistic traditions. Animists aren’t required to believe, but rather to explore; through the various tools and principles of animism, we can develop our own, uniquely individual, experiences of the spiritual world – including the deities we want to work with.

These experiences bring the deities out of the realms of story and myth, and into our lives in a concrete, helpful ways. It is in these experiences that animism is most closely aligned with the mystical traditions various religions.

While many modern people want to engage with maps of their world from a new perspective, the requirement to believe in a deity can be an enourmous hurdle for people raised in our secular, rational society.

Animism provides an approach to the spiritual and the mystical that we can engage with completely free from theistic dogma, and completely free of Gods if we want. While the Gods are the heart and fuel of theistic religions, animism values our relationships with our ancestors, land and community.

Our relationships to these sources is what creates the path and effectiveness of animist methods, leaving us free to engage with deities, or not, as we see fit.

Animism Doesn’t Conflict With Science

Religion and spirituality on the one hand, science and rationality on the other.

For a long time, these two facets of human experience have been on opposing sides, clashing over everything from big, universal questions – why are we here? – to intimate, personal ones – is my sexuality ok?

Animism might seem to conflict with science too, at first glance. But animism isn’t a religion, nor a New Age spiritual movement, and it’s relationship with science can be surprising.

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Animism & Witchcraft

Witchcraft is a part of my personal spiritual identity as a practitioner of Northern European animism. But is witchcraft animism?

The word witch traces back to the Old English wicce/wicca meaning wise person, magician or sorceress, and possibly futher back into Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo_European with a relation to words meaning sacred, to divide, to divine or to wake.

In the modern world, witchcraft encompasses a vast array of practices, beliefs and  traditions. Many of these have roots in ancient Northern European paths, while others are rooted in other lands and cultures. It’s relationship with animist is fluid and complex; these are areas of living experience that aren’t easily defined into tidy boxes, and they vary between people, place and time.

But for me, witchcraft is a part of animism and also a religion that grew out of animism. It’s a part of animism because much of non-religious witchcraft in the UK and other European countries is a continuation of deeply animistic folk magic, mysticism and reverance for the land and ancestors. These are practices that our ancestors have held and worked with for millenia, and while in witchcraft they take on a particular aesthetic, structure or intent, they are still deeply concerned with the relationships between people, their land and their community.

In this way witchcraft is a branch of the tree of animism, a particularly Northern European branch with rich modern resources.

But witchcraft can also be a religion, when it becomes hierarchical and organised around specific rules, such as which deities to honour and which ceremonies to practice at certain times. As we’ve talk about, animism is not a religion; and while our animistic ancestors would certainly have recognised the deities and ceremonies used in modern religious witchcraft, the highly ordered practice between separate communities would be alien to them.

And neither is all animism witchcraft; many people who practice animism use no folk magic at all. They work with angels or ancestors but no pantheistic deities or land spirits, and their ceremonies draw from completely different animistic roots and lands.

When we’re talking about deeply personal spiritual experiences and concepts like this, it’s important to remember that we can’t – and dont need to – define the experiences of others for them. While I call my spiritual practices animism, others who have the same viewpoints and methods use different words, like witchcraft. While shared language is helpful, so that we can share and learn from each other, we have to remember that these words are simply viewfinders that help us work within a vast and ambiguous field of experience.

What matters more is our own personal understanding of the terms we use and the methods we apply, and our ability to work with them is a way that’s helpful for ourselves and for others.

Animism is not New Age

The New Age is “an eclectic group of cultural attitudes … that are adapted from those of a variety of ancient and modern cultures, that emphasize beliefs outside the mainstream“.*

It is rooted in the Western counter-culture movement of the 1960s, and began as a search for alternative approaches to spirituality and health. As such, it shares some features of animism and is often confused with animism by both animist practitioners and followers of the New Age.

The New Age has no universal rules, hierarchy or source texts, just like animism. It also recognises the value of nature and intuition, and it can’t be defined as a religion, philosophy or life style, again like animism.

But animism is not the New Age.

Animism is ancient and inherent to humanity. We know that our most ancient ancestors behaved in ways that we now call animistic, and that children will create animist practices of their own volition when given space to do so.

Whereas the New Age is modern, only a few decades old, and derived from Western European rejection of monotheistic laws and mores; not so much reclaimed as created.

Animism is practical and experiential.

It’s focus is on finding the methods and ideas that help in a specific situation, rather than on following a particular belief. It embraces experiences, even when they challenge previous ideas, and is therefore flexible.

The New Age is focused on belief or aesthetic over practicality, as can be seen in the anti-vaccine movement and the proliferation of New Age marketing. It also often requires ongoing access to teachers, equipment and events in order to engage with it’s practices, in contrast to animism which can be practiced in isolation without external teaching or certification.

And animism belongs to everyone, regardless of ancestry.

The New Age has been commodified into an exclusive product for a select few. Participation in the New Age movement is highly segregated by class, language and race, because of it’s roots within collonialism, racism, appropriation, capitalism and the romanticisation of non-Western cultures.

Animism, on the other hand, is far older than collonialism; and it requires that we examine our prejudices in order to be effective. It is available to all people, without needing them to appropriate from other cultures, because it’s ancient enough that everyone has their own, local heritage of animism. And because of how personal and inherent animism is, it has so far escaped commodification.

In a way, the New Age is a modern, Western approximation of animism.

Born of a yearning for spiritual sovereignty, nature and freedom, it speaks of our need for the methods and maps that help us navigate the web of our relationships. But animism goes far deeper, and is much more accessible, than the New Age movement. When we reclaim animism for ourselves, we can step beyond the need for it’s facsimile.

Animism is not a religion

Religion is defined as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods” or “a particular system of faith and worship”.*

The word religion is relatively modern. It was first used by the Romans, with the meaning of an obligation or duty to the gods and the strict observance of Roman religious laws. It came to mean the life led under Christian monastic vows in Middle English, being inherited by Roman Christianity from the earlier, pagan, Roman belief system.

As we all know, Roman Christianity spread throughout Europe, decimating and appropriating indigenous European beliefs and animism, before replicating itself around the world like a virus through Roman-romanticising empire building, collonialism and economic conquest.

As such, it’s not appropriate to apply the word religion to practices and concepts outside of modern Western experience, and most certainly not appropriate to backdate it’s use into our ancient past, to the practices and spiritual experiences of our distant European ancestors.

To apply religion in this way is a function of collonialism.

The idea that we can define and restrict the language around practices, beliefs, experiences and thoughts of other peoples, other cultures – even our own ancestors. This colonial attitude stems from an arrogance and racism that believes modern Western culture is more important or better, historically, than those of other places and times.

Our ancestors didn’t share this same concept of religion, and neither do many other cultures around the world today, particularly endangered, indigenous cultures like the Aboriginals of Australia and the remaining Native American tribes. To force the spiritual and world-views of these non-Western cultures into a Western concept and language is another way that oppression is perpetuated. In a way, it is also an oppression of ourselves; an oppression that has been perpetuated for millennia, beginning initially with our own ancestors.

Animism, therefore, doesn’t fit the definition of the word religion.

Practicing animists don’t have to believe in or honour, worship or acknowledge any God or Gods; practice can be humanistic, pagan, monotheistic or change depending on the situation. Many animists the world over experience some form of great spiritual being or awareness, but just as many others do not. There are no rules in animism.

And because there are no rules, there is no overarching system of animist practice. There are no universal animist laws, practices, beliefs, authorities, sources, organisations or experiences; animism changes over time and within space, and even within an individual depending on need. This fluidity and openness means that animism cannot be called a system: “a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method“.*

But if it’s not a religion, what is animism?

Animism is fluid, personal and contextual; it’s practice and experience is dependent on the people, time, place and intent of it’s use. It can appear similiar to Western religions, or folk magic, or philosophy, or mysticism, or art,  or any number of other ways that people make sense of the world.

Where it is universal is it’s adaptability. Animism is consistently open to change and need. Like other fundamental expressions of humanity, it’s power is in it’s personal and direct usage. Animism is a fundamental facet of human nature, unlike any other, larger than any language, culture or category.

Lies, Damned Lies and Anthropology

Lies, Damned Lies and Anthropology

Animism is not a religion. It has no sacred texts that all practitioners must use. It has no priesthood or hierarchy other than those local practitioners choose to work within. It has no universal rules; no god or goddess that all must worship, no form or method that must be followed, and no moral law to govern behaviour.

Animism has a set of underlying principles and a toolbox of methods, ideas and stances that can be called on, modified or bypassed depending on the situation and goal. And while it has been defined by anthropologists over the last few centuries as ‘the belief that matter has a soul’, it is a much wider worldview than this, as well as being much more than simply a belief system.

But anthropologists from the West have typically defined animism as a religion.

One that is based around the belief that inanimate matter has a soul, the belief that the universe has a soul, or the belief in ancestor worship. These definitions have created confusion and misconceptions around animism that obscure the reality.

While many forms of animism do involve beliefs around ancestors and the relationships between people and the inanimate world, these beliefs and practices are neither universal, nor required. And even when these beliefs are applicable, they are neither as simple nor as directly translatable into dominant Western concepts and language as anthropological definitions suggest.

Anthropology fails in its understanding of animism because of three factors.

The first of these is that anthropologists are always a product of their own culture and language. When one culture considers itself superior, as Western culture has for centuries, and where it is entwined with dogmatic, religious views, its language is limited by this bias and it is almost impossible for members of that culture to understand the cultures and spiritual systems of other people.

These are the encumbrances that Western anthropologists have brought to the study of animism, both the animism of other cultures and that of their own ancestors. The influence of these limitations can be seen in the language used to define animism; both the words “soul” and “worship” have a long history of religious use in the West, and are inextricable from their specifically Christian past.

Neither word can appropriately be applied to animism when speaking generally, because of the lack of any standard form of belief in animism and because of their very broad meaning in the Western culture. Coming as they do from a religious system that has perpetuated prejudice and misinformation about animist practices for thousands of years also makes their application to animism oppressive.

Animism is not a religion.

This leads us to the second factor in the failure of Western anthropology to define animism. While we tend to, as a culture, ascribe all belief and spirituality to the realm of religion, animism is far older than all organizing systems of belief. While it can be considered their root, and in many religions we can see it’s echoes, animism has totally different goals, methods and principles than any religion.

Anthropologists from mainstream Western cultures are biased to look for religions; for organized practices and consistent rules. But animism has no rules, no hierarchy and no source material. There are no proscribed beliefs everyone must adhere to, but rather principles that are applied depending on the situation.

When you look at animism expecting to see a religion, it’s easy to miss the subtle variations, mundane practices and everyday beliefs that are alien to your experience of religion, and so to discount them. It easier still to see the broad strokes of spiritual practice and thinking, and to ascribe to them a structure that meets your expectation. And it’s likely that you will make damaging assumptions about the meaning behind the practices of people you don’t understand.

Animism varies massively in it’s application.

Everything from folk magic to architecture, art to the way someone wears their hair, can be a part of it’s practice. It is more akin to a culture in itself than a religion. It cannot be defined down to such a simple concept as ancestor or nature worship.

The final factor in how animism has been misunderstood is that animism is fundamentally experiential. It is not a theory or mythology, but a system of active relationship. The views of Western anthropologists have been based largely on observation, and it is impossible to fully grasp these practices without firsthand experience of them.

For example, watching another person practicing trance or ceremony will provide you with very little understanding of the internal experience of these practices. From the outside, the person may be behaving with extraordinary energy, or be very still and silent. They may use highly symbolic, charged objects like masks and weapons, or a drum, or nothing at all. They may act out part of their experience, or be completely self contained.

But the external expressions of these practices tell you very little about how and why the person is using them, or what they gain from them. It’s very easy to dismiss these practices, or on the other hand to exoticise them, when all you have is the external form to judge by. They may all look the same, though they are highly personal, or they may look vastly different, though they share deep principles.

Studying the theory of these practices, again, can’t convey more than the basic form. Practitioners who begin working with these tools are always surprised by how vivid, profound, subtle, difficult or even empty they are – no one can know how each method will feel for them until they engage with them personally.

Direct experience of animism can transcend these barriers.

Those anthropologists who have personally engaged with animistic practices, such as Dr Alberto Villoldo and Micheal Harner have often become practitioners of animism themselves. Animism is, in fact, so deeply rooted in our species’ heritage that contact with it can transcend almost all cultural, religious and psychological barriers. It is both our past, and our unified future. The root of human connection and our one, shared heritage.

Practitioners of animism will all give you different answers of what animism is, why they practice it, and what they call it. For many, it is simply the way they live, as unthinking at breathing. For others, particularly in the West, it’s a hard won and treasured path, sometimes recognised as related to the animism of other cultures, but often not.

Anthropology has a lot to answer for.

For the last few centuries, anthropologist have been encountering the animistic concepts and practices of cultures around the world and attempting to define them for a Western audience, and they’ve largely done it badly. This has led to a very poor understanding of animism in Western culture. These misunderstandings have become so pervasive that many practitioners of animism don’t even realist that that’s what they’re practicing, instead believing that they’re practicing ‘shamanism’, energy medicine or Jungian psychology.

Folklorists, theologians, the religious establishment, psychologists and new ‘spiritual’ movements have some blame to take here as well. Through their biased understanding of the spiritual heritage of the Western peoples, they have perpetuated some of the most damaging myths about spirituality and animism, like the belief that Western people have no animist heritage or that animism is inherently a religion.

But we can reclaim animism; it’s not lost.

When we get past the myths and lies about our indigenous spiritual heritage, we find that it’s right here, waiting for us.

Atheism or Non-theism?

I consider myself a non-theist. I was raised by atheists, in a secular society, and for a long time I was confused by my spiritual experiences – I thought that if I experienced these things, I must be ‘religious’. (Of course, my parents’ weren’t keen on that!)

But over time, I’ve come to see that spiritual experience does not equal experience of ‘God’. My experiences with spirits and non-ordinary realities doesn’t mean that I have to believe in the whole package; a creator God who controls the universe makes no sense to me, in light of my experiences. And so I’m a non-theist.

Why not an atheist? It was the ‘family religion’, after all. And that’s exactly why I don’t identify in that way; my experiences of atheism are that it comes with a lot of unrelated baggage, just like a religion, which complicate spiritual practice. Atheists, in my experience, worship science and rationality; I don’t think that science and rationality provide all the answers, or even practical answers a lot of the time.

Atheists also seem to hold a lot of beliefs about the world that can’t be based in their experience or be proven; for example, science doesn’t prove the non-existence of spirits, or non-ordinary realities, and yet many atheists are violently opposed to considering these topics as anything other than ‘irrationality’ or ‘mental illness’. And I understand; in a world that’s only just recovering from religious oppression of free thinking peoples, it’s tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. “Let in any belief, other than science,” atheists seem to say, “and we’ll lose all our secular rights again.”

But for people like me, for whom these other, spiritual, experiences are valuable and real, atheism can be as dangerous as religious zealotry. Where’s the line between a mental health ward and a prison, a lifetime on anti-psychotics or burning at the stake? The religion of rationality is as damaging as the religions of the book; dogma is dogma, and so – I’m a non-theist.