"What is animism?"

[compatriots.livejournal.com]

My immediate family attends a Baptist church. They are unaware of my differing spiritual beliefs, and were I not sick right now I would be preparing to leave for day three of the church's mission conference with them. Earlier today I picked up one of the little booklets that has information about the attending missionaries and began to flip through it, and a page titled "What is animism?" caught my attention. Here is a link to the article online.

Any thoughts? I'm a newbie to the animist community admittedly, but have yet to run into anyone who views life as "everything in the universe as warring against each other to become the deity or king of the hill." Granted this article is talking about cultures where animism is the dominant belief, and beliefs are certainly different between cultures. Not that everything in my universe is happy dancing through fields of flowers with other spirits, but I'm not concerned with tricking them in order to fight my way to the top of whatever spiritual mountain.

I am just mildly curious if any of you had this warring view on life, or anything to say. Being stuck at home has left me bored and itching for something to talk about, hah, so forgive the lack of pressing questions or serious thoughts in this post.

- Teagan

Comments

[animist.livejournal.com]

Something to keep in mind is the use of animals in Christian allegory. Not just more contemporary things, like the Narnia Book. In the Bible, sometimes animals represent important people, like Jesus as the the Lamb, or aspects of God, like the Holy Spirit as a Dove. The Evangelists themselves are shown as animals at times: St, Luke as an Ox, St. Mark as a Lion, St. John as an Eagle. In none of these cases, are we being told to worship the animal as an idol. Instead, the animal's rich meaning speaks in a simple symbol what would take a book to explain in detail. The art of the early Christian church is rich in meaningful animals.

I believe Animism is in part a way to understand things beyond a literal meaning using animals. I do not believe it is a worship of animals. I believe my totem animal, the wolf, is like an angel or spirit guide. My animism arose spontaneously out of a time in my life that I was an Atheist, and has stayed with me as my faith and understanding grew. I was a Buddhist for a while, and then was "grabbed" by the Holy Spirit while visiting a church out of politeness (and with no intention of conversion). I'm a Lutheran now.

This is just my perspective. I hope it's giving you something you may find useful. Take care!

[animist.livejournal.com]

I should have noted that Jesus is both an important person and an aspect of God in the Bible. :)

Martin Luther on Animism being very close to the truth

[animist.livejournal.com]

This may be of interest:

http://animist.livejournal.com/300516.html