animism

Belief in spirits. Strictly speaking, the term animism refers to a theory about the origin of religion. The theory is now widely rejected. Some still use the word to refer to the religious beliefs and practices of indigenous peoples. But the beliefs and practices to which animism refers vary widely. As a result, what animists believe and do must be determined on a case-by-case basis. In 1871 the English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) published an epochmaking book, Primitive Culture. In it, he developed the theory that animism—the belief in spirits—was the origin of religion. At the time Tylor was writing, many authors were developing evolutionary theories of religion (see EVOLUTION AND RELIGION). They assumed that evolution always moved in one direction: from the simplest to the most complex forms. Therefore, to fi nd the origin of religion, all one had to do was identify its simplest form. Tylor thought he had found it: the belief in spirits. Tylor suggested how people fi rst came to believe in spirits. A corpse is strikingly different from a living human being. But what makes it different? Tylor said that "primitives" attributed the difference to a spirit that animates the body, that is, that makes the body alive. Tylor also pointed to the difference between dreaming and waking. He said that to explain the experience of dreams, "primitives" hypothesized that the spirit left the body. Once the idea of spirit was born, it was just a short step to apply it to the world of nature. Spirits explained the growth of trees and animals, the roar of the thunder, anything unusual. Indeed, for Tylor's "primitives" the whole world was full of spirits. Tylor buttressed his account with numerous references to reports about the religion of living "primitives." There were, however, competing theories. The anthropologist R. R. Marett said that there was a stage even earlier than animism: not so much belief as emotional awe in the presence of an impersonal force, something like religious electricity. Marett called this religion preanimism or DYNAMISM. Prominent thinkers like Sigmund FREUD and Émile DURKHEIM picked up on an idea of W. Robertson Smith. He had suggested that TOTEMISM was the earliest religion. James George FRAZER hypothesized that a stage of MAGIC had preceded religion. Wilhelm Schmidt said all these theories were wrong. The first religion had been the belief in a high god, "primal MONOTHEISM." There was really no conclusive evidence for any of these views of religion's origin. Furthermore, Tylor treated religion as if it were nothing more than a set of beliefs. As anthropologists spent time with peoples outside of Europe, they began to realize that Tylor and others had used their evidence in crude and misleading ways. They gave up the search for the origins of religion and culture and studied contemporary religions and cultures instead. But Tylor's infl uence had been enormous. "Animism" had become a polite term for what people used to call "paganism," "heathenism," and "savagery." At the end of the 20th century some still used the term.