Comparative Religious Studies: Animism/Spiritism
The concepts of spiritism and animism are another wide-ranging religious practice that covers a great deal of the surface of the earth. These two concepts are the final degradation of the concepts of deity, or supernatural, before the final devolved state of atheism.
A prime example of this sort of degradation lies in the plethora of eastern philosophies. As man progressed from the Ark outward across the surface of the earth, he went from monotheism, to polytheism, through pantheism to spiritism/animism to atheism. A microcosm of this sort of progress is shown clearly in the examination of the eastern sects, where early representations of deity show one god with three heads, and much later developments, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, lead one away from the belief in any deity at all.
Animism and spiritism are the beliefs that animals as well as humans have souls, and that these souls make up the essence of the supernatural experience. In some cases not only do animal forms have souls, but also plants and rocks, and in some cases, even the earth itself have living essences.
Examples of this kind of belief range from the North American Indians who believe in animal spirits such as the great white buffalo, the thunderbird, to African Voodoo, where the dead are called to to perform certain services for the living.
The primary difference between animism and spiritism is that in animism, the animal spirits represent some other, greater force that provides life to all living things. The Indians called this “The Great Spirit.” Each animal’s spirit is a facet, or representation of a type of spiritual power. This line of thought is certainly a derivation of pantheism, where all things have a sort of energy which contributes to meaning of nature and creation. In spiritism, however, one’s ancestors are the guiding supernatural influences.
These religions are heavily centered around mystic ceremonies. Many ceremonies involve the attempt at calling out one’s ancestors or the spirit of an animal to provide guidance, strength or power over one’s enemies. The ceremonies of dream walking, spirit walking, and spirit worship generally call for lots of mind altering substances to help enhance the participant’s reception to the unknown. One of the more famous variants of spiritism, Voodoo, even goes so far as to invent it’s own concoctions of herbs which are designed to alter one’s thinking in many different ways.
The main issue with spiritism is that one can never be sure of the results. In Voodoo there are ten times more “protection” spells than there are summoning spells. This is because when you summon the dead, you often get unwanted involvement by evil spirits who com along for the ride. When you give your body over to drugs or hypnotism you loose all hope of self-determination or control. In fact, this lack of control, or altered state of consciousness is an integral part of the summoning process. Another form of spiritism; “Spinning” is an attempt at channeling spirits who provide spiritual awareness, or cosmic awareness. By spinning counter clockwise these spinners put themselves into a state of deep hypnosis where any number of supernatural effects are said to occur, from imperviousness to pain, to actual complete cosmic awareness. These sorts of rituals are also often associated with the occult, or satanist practices.
Unfortunately many of the “big” questions of religion are left unanswered. Spiritism and animism attempt nothing more than to explain the “now” in simplistic terms. One’s purpose is mandated by nothing more than the fate of nature and the forces the spirits wield. Because the individual gives up control over their mind and body, they can never really be sure if the forces are pushing them towards beneficial results, or at the least, no real results at all. Spiritism offers no solution for the origin of the universe, the existence of man, or the questions of morality. For answers to the questions of origin you must look elsewhere.
Of course, the main problem with spiritism and animism is that the universe had a beginning, and the spirits of animals did not exist at that beginning. From where then do we receive the “spirit?” Spiritism and animism attempt to explain these origins, but these mythologies and stories are pure nonsense. There is no “great turtle” on which the earth rests, or which dug up the earth from the ocean. There is no thunderbird which causes the sky to light up.
The only tie to reality spiritism has to reality is the existence of ghosts, or ghostly apparitions. However, even these can be explained through many other means. While on the surface animism and spiritism teach us respect for our ancestors and a sense of respect for the natural world which surrounds us, it’s ceremonies and thought processes clearly exhibit dangerous ideas about religious practice. Calling to demons, or the dead; summoning the spirits of animals or of the earth while unable to control your own thoughts is simply asking for trouble.
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