Opus 2025-414: Animism Is Alive and Well

If you know what animism is you probably are looking at me as if I’ve lost my marbles or considering moving on to reading something else.  If you don’t know, what animism is, you may be feeling the same way, but let me give a brief explanation.

Animism is a belief in primitive cultures of the existence of spirits in almost every object you see.  If you were an animist you assume that every rock has a little god or spirit and every tree the same.  I have heard stories, I don’t know if they’re true, that American Indians would thank the deer for giving up his life so they could eat.  I can think of people apologizing to trees when they cut them down to make lumber.

You might think we’re beyond that but the superstitions of animism reside with us at all times.  They are still alive and well.  Have you ever knocked on wood?  Do you avoid black cats?  Have you ever worried after you broke a mirror about the potential for bad luck?  When you were a child, did you ever chant, “Step on a crack, your break your mother‘s back; step on a line you break your mother spine”?  These things are still with us.  They are a residue of animism.

Now let me really stick my finger into it.  People who talk to their pets are practicing animism.  It’s amazing some of the great conversations people have with a cat or a dog.  Some might even have those conversations with a hamster or with a plant growing in the kitchen window.  They would deny it, but I believe they think that these objects actually are aware of what they’re saying.  I will talk to the cat when it’s here and my wife is gone.  I don’t talk to it thinking it understands me.  I talk to it because I think it enjoys the sound of human voices, and it brings a sense of peace to the animal.  I wouldn’t talk to a plant thinking it understood.  I would talk to a plant thinking that it rejoiced in the carbon dioxide I was exhaling.

But some people actually think that their cat understands them.  No, I’m not talking about simple understanding of words like “outside” or “eat”.  I’m talking about asking the cat if his bed is comfortable or if the room is too hot.  I’m talking about sharing your recent romantic struggles with your dog.

So yes, animism is still with us.  I don’t know if that’s a big problem for us.  I don’t know how seriously our primitive ancestors took it.  But it is alive and well

homo unius libri