Voodoo Animism Animism comes from Latin, meaning soul or life. It is referred to the belief that all non-human entities are some kind of spirit being or at least the hold some kind of life principle. Animism hold the belief that spiritual and material worlds have no separation and spirits and souls exist in every living thing be it human, animal and plants. It also believes that natural occurrences such as thunder, rivers, mountains, in fact anything in the natural environment have souls and spirits. Animism and Religion. Animism is a belief held in many different religions around the world and is not in fact a religion itself. Many people do see Animism as a religion in its own right but it is not, it is merely a belief in those religions. Some theories have been put forward that the belief in animism among early humans was the basis for the later evolution of religions. Early humans initially, by observation, recognised what might be called a soul, life-force, spirit, breath or animus within themselves; they also found that this was present in the body in life and absent in death. These early humans thought this soul would appear in dreams and visions. These early human cultures later interpreted these spirits to be present in animals, the living plant world, and even in natural objects in a form of animism. Eventually, these early humans grew to believe that the spirits were invested and interested in human life, and performed rituals to propitiate them. Death Most animistic belief systems believe that the spirit survives physical death. They believe that the spirit passes to an easier world of full of game or ever-ripe crops, while in other systems, the spirit remains on earth as a ghost, often malignant. Still other systems combine these two beliefs, holding that the soul must journey to the spirit world without becoming lost and thus wandering as a ghost (e.g., the Navajo religion). Funeral, mourning rituals, and ancestor worship performed by those surviving the deceased are often considered necessary for the successful completion of this journey. From the belief in the survival of the dead arose the practice of offering food, lighting fires, etc., at the grave, at first, maybe, as an act of friendship and later as an act of ancestor worship. The simple offering of food or shedding of blood at the grave develops into an elaborate system of sacrifice. Even where ancestor worship is not found, the desire to provide the dead with comforts in the future life may lead to the sacrifice of wives, slaves, animals, and so on, to the breaking or burning of objects at the grave or to the provision of the ferrymans toll: a coin put in the mouth of the corpse to pay the travelling expenses of the soul. The soul might pass to the land of the dead, but there is a belief that if life has ended in a violent way, that soul becomes a malignant spirit and may return to endanger the lives of those who walk near the haunted spot (where the death occurred). It is also believed that a woman who dies in childbirth becomes a vampire-like spirit who will threaten the lives of human beings.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 22:48:02 +0000
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