Defining Animism

What is Animism?

We humans are creatures of the Earth. We are kin with all the other animals, birds, plants, trees and fungi, insects, reptiles and fish, the rocks and mountains, all the water of the Earth and the air we breathe.

Animism is the awareness of life in all the beings on the Earth, including the land herself. As all beings have life, they can be communicated with, worked with and honoured. We are all interconnected in the web of life. But its more than that.

Animism is the awareness that all beings have a soul or spirit – including ourselves.

It is the practice of living with this deep awareness of our connection with all other beings and the practice of communication, both physically and spiritually, that comes from this awareness.

Spirit connection

Our society is largely devoid of a spiritual component, particularly anything which recognises that we have a spirit, never-mind recognising that a tree or a river has a soul.

Spirit connection is central to animism but often ignored when people talk about it. Yet its why many traditional animist cultures have shamans – those who travel through the spirit realms to bring healing back to the people.

For all the recent popularity of the term “animism” and indeed the practice of shamanism, it remains considered to be something that other people do – people in other parts of the world living in very different cultures to our own. Yet that isn’t true.

Spiritual appropriation

These days many people are seeking to gain experience and understanding of the sacred. Whilst this is positive, this desire is taking them all over the world to buy and appropriate the spiritual practices of other people, particularly indigenous people and those with less power and money than themselves. This is a big problem in Britain.

There is clearly a need to return to who we are, as spirit beings, to remember and relearn our own practices. The answer is not, however, in spiritual or cultural appropriation.

Indigenous people around the world today live on the edge of the final frontiers, where the battles to preserve our wilderness are being fought. Their communities retain much knowledge of how to live in right relationship with their more-than-human kin, despite overwhelming adversity from others (us and our ancestors).

We would do well to listen to indigenous people and support their causes. The frontier battles are taking place partly because the dominant global paradigm sees the natural world as something separate to ourselves, something to be plundered as a resource.

This is the result of centuries of disconnect from our more-than-human kin. We need to change this perception so that we can all live in right relationship with each other and share our beautiful planet, yet we are leaving indigenous people and those without power or resources to fight for us all.

In reclaiming animism and spirit connection, the best we can do is to respect and support indigenous people around the world today, learning from them when they choose to share elements of their culture but finding our own way, based on our own land-based spiritual traditions.

Reclaiming Spirit Connection

For too long our culture has rejected the existence of spirit as being real. Those who practiced any kind of psychic / spirit-healing/ animist practice, in Britain as elsewhere, have been shunned/ dismissed/ demonised and ridiculed for centuries. This needs to change.

In British prehistory, the indigenous people were animists. Later, throughout the frequent movement of peoples within the land, there remained those who were able to connect with spirit. This ability is part of who we are as a species. We need to find new words to describe these practices and remove the prejudices and power dynamics from them.

There are layers upon layers of interconnected issues concerned with both the perceived human separation from nature and the demonisation of spirit connection. They flow through history and have impacted the creation of the present world. From the treatment of women and animals, the impact of Christianity, power and politics and the foundation and legacy of colonialism, with all its horror.

Animism is at the heart of who we are as a species and it’s at the heart of the history of our world.

It is now thought that animism was central to human belief and practice since we emerged as a species and for many thousands of years later, all over the world. All our ancestors were animists.

We need to come home to who we really are, to heal the hurt of the centuries of disconnect and all the trauma that has come from this.

Practicing Animism

The word Animism describes something that JUST IS. It’s remarkable only because it has turned something so basic and universal into something complex and theoretical.

The ability to practice animism is simply about bringing awareness to that which is already there – your spirit and that of all other beings.

It’s about getting out of your mind and coming into your animal self, your wise intuitive self which feels connection with other beings and with the web-of-life. It’s about being present, embodied and aware.

Practicing Animism is about accessing that part of you that feels wonder, the creative part of you that is curious and follows your nose. The part of you that was there before society told you to “grow up”.

It’s about reclaiming our animal self and learning to connect with our spirit self, as one integrated being. It’s about learning to communicate and live together with our other-than-human and spirit kin from a place of deep respect and connection.

Though it may take us a while to find our way back to living an animist way of life, it’s possible, simply because it’s who we are. The way most of us live today causes us to be depressed, dissociated and disconnected, even from ourselves.

We desire to come home and live in right relationship with our more-than-human kin. We desire to remember our spiritual essence and our connection with all beings within the web-of-life.

What we could be

Way back, all our ancestors lived sustainably on the Earth, in right relationship with other beings.

They had ties to the land and to each other and knew how to look after the spirits of the land, the animals, the birds and the fish. They knew which areas of the land were sacred and those to be avoided. They knew how to work with ancestral spirits and how to read signs and omens from the spirit realm.

They were intuitive and, above all, they listened and respected the web-of-life and the unseen realms. How do we know this? Because we survived for many thousands of years barely making an impact on the Earth - we thrived.

These memories are still there, embedded in our DNA. To access these memories is possible, when you learn the old ways.

Learning or remembering the practice of animism is about reclaiming our animal self and learning to connect with our spirit self, as one integrated being. It’s about learning to communicate and live together with our other-than-human and spirit kin from a place of deep connection.

It’s about connecting with the spirits of the trees, the plants and the animals, the land and sea we share our planet with. It’s about forming relationships with other beings & bringing awareness to the deeper spiritual aspects of life.

The skills remain accessible; like old hands going over ancient tools, we know what to do and with practice it comes back. When it does, it is with a deep knowing and understanding and a longing to return to what was once so lived and known.

Samara Lewis