Spiritual Ligaments (I): Animism and Inanimism

According to the most generic and basic definition, found in countless encyclopedias, Animism is the belief that objects, places and creatures possess a ‘spiritual essence’, and that such ‘spirits’ influence, positively or negatively, benevolently or malevolently, human beings and events. As a consequence, the ‘animistic’ conception of reality sees all things as alive (animated), and from there it takes its title, since the Latin Anima means both life and soul, and this is because life, properly so called, does not ‘arise’ from matter, but descends from spirit into matter and through the animic world. As Aristotle (and Aquinas) put it: the soul is the form of the body. Since ‘form’ is a corrupted word in our day, perhaps it is easier to understand if we say that the soul is the essence of the body, and hence there are no bodies without souls, because there are no existences without essences – and the very fact that there are different sorts of bodies (mineral, vegetable, animal and human) in the material world, means that there are different sorts of souls in the animic world. These are, then, what the ‘animist’ recognizes.

It is possible (and useful) then to separate Animism as defined above from the supposed ‘animistic’ practices to which the term has been applied and for which it was invented. The first reason is that there is no unity between such practices, nor between the peoples that practiced or practice them, so that the ancestral religion of the Japanese has very little in common in its specifics with the ancestral religion of the Australian aborigines – except for the animistic conception of Creation, of course – and none of the faithful of such religions would reply they were ‘animist’ if asked what their religion was, not because they are not ‘animist’ according to the definition, but because first of all to them such a question would be absurd (only moderns choose their religion), and second because such a belief in a living world is the most basic substrate of understanding, so basic and generic that it does not need to be expressed specifically. And the second reason why we can distinguish this conception from specific practices is that the basic definition of a world of living things and beings does not imply any particular practice – which is attested by the multiplicity and variety of practices described by moderns found everywhere around the globe and in all eras. But above all, and as we will try to demonstrate, because such a conception of a living world is not exclusive to the religions and practices to which it has been applied, but is the normal conception of all peoples up to modern times – including the Christian – and that it is only in modernity that Creation is taken as inanimate, and that life is merely a biological, materialistic designation – a definition that, for its inherent absurdity, is starting to be troublesome even for scientists.

The term ‘Animism’ was invented at the beginning of the XIX Century, a contemporary of the Industrial Revolution, and used by evolutionist anthropologists whose views and prejudices survive to our own days – with the notable difference that at the time they were novel ideas that common men not only ignored but, had they known them, would discard as absurd, and today they are dogmas for the whole of society, that as we shall see are required for the functioning of modern society as it exists. According to these anthropologists, and in conformity with the rest of evolutionist conceptions, the religious forms of men also evolve – and ‘animism’ could then be designated as the original, primitive view and the mechanic, industrial view of men the most evolved – and according to its foremost ‘prophet’ Edward Tylor (the most prominent writer on ‘primitive animism’ and popularizer of the term), the end of all this religious evolution would be, precisely and without surprise, the rejection of all religion and the adoption of a purely materialistic, rationalistic and ‘scientific’ (in fact, scientistic) view. If the ‘prophecy’ has been fulfilled, however, it is not the result of any natural evolution, especially not with its connotation of ‘positive development’, but is in fact a true degradation and degeneration in understanding.

It should be noted that the generic definition does not necessarily include worship of such souls which are found in things – although it does not exclude it either and many of the religious forms identified as animistic do include such worship and, even more frequently, veneration, while reserving worship to the ‘Great Spirit’, at the same time Creator and present in Creation, but also above it, as is the case of the North-American Indian tribes – as described by Black Elk: «We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends». What is striking on the generic definition of Animism is that it is not in fact only found in the ‘primitive’ religions to which it was applied, but that it is found in all religious forms properly so-called – including the Christian in its traditional form.

In a way similar to the expressions ‘traditional family’ or ‘organic agriculture’, ‘animistic religion’ is a term which could only arise when the paradigm is so radically its opposite, a definition for something that previously was so basic and obvious that it needed not be defined – being then also obvious why the term (and its conception as ‘special’ and ‘primitive) was contemporary with the Industrial Revolution, the final severing of Men from Creation and God, just like it is contemporary with another manifestation of that severing, the idea of darwinist transformism. So in the same way that there are no Biblical or Patristic writings that directly deal with and refute the darwinist idea, despite the fact that it is completely incompatible with the Christian conception of the origins of life and an implicit denial of the most basic Christian doctrines, there is also no such document specifically dealing with and defending an animistic conception of Creation. If on the one hand the darwinist idea was so absurd that not even the heretics of eighteen full centuries proposed it, on the other the idea of a living Creation was so obvious that no heretic denied it explicitly (not even the Creation-denying gnosticists), and therefore it was not necessary to defend such an idea that was understood and taken as a given by all. So that when reading the Scriptures or the Patristic writings, the animistic conception is implicitly assumed. And only in such an advanced phase of modern degeneration could the contrary idea of a dead world of matter arise, something which we could call in opposition ‘inanimism’.

From this new inanimist belief a new world was born, a new mode of organization and action, underlying most of men’s actions and activities in the world today. Industrial production, state bureaucracy and capitalist consumerism reflect this belief by taking all of Creation as a mere material resource to be explored and consumed, thereby denying it any qualitative character and reducing it to the purely quantitative realm (be it of money or of statistics). And in the same way, proceeding in this degeneration, this conception today includes men and women, reduced to ‘human resources’ and ‘demographics’, and subject to the same engineering as the rest of Creation for the same purely material ends. And if this quantification, depersonalization and deinspiration of men is already an integral part of the modern way of life and almost fully realized (although, in theory, Man is still taken to be ‘animated’, if nothing else on a biological, materialistic way, the normalization of abortion and all other forms of self-destruction prove that in practice there are no real barriers left to the destruction and exploration of Man himself, and all the more so after the totalitarian coup of 2020), with regards to the rest of Creation it is so for much longer, and therefore there is no limit to the exploration, destruction and abuse, neither qualitative nor quantitative, and everything can be used and abused in whatever measure and for whatever purpose – because in the modern view, Creation is simply dead matter, even when it does contain biologic life – which naturally is not the same type of Life that is implicit in the animistic conception (just like it is not the Life that is found in Christ). And for that very same reason, modern man cannot conceive that certain things and places contain evil or dangerous spirits, and proceed to liberate them and allow them into the world by their productive and exploratory activities, and making it so that men mingle constantly with the products of these highly dangerous explorations, and that the environment that surrounds modern men acquires more and more an infernal character.

Inanimism is but the underlying belief that justifies the bureaucratic, industrial and consumerist character of our age. As an example, if before a man had a piece of clothing for work and another for leisure, valuing both qualitatively and recognizing in both a special character, and passing them on to future generations, today he has many in which he does not recognize any special character and that are all interchangeable and disposable, and none really worthy of passing on as legacy. On the one hand it is the production of clothing itself which is not imbued with any special character, not having the particular touch of a man or woman who made it, but on the contrary being produced by an impersonal machine with very little human input and that produces another million which are exactly the same. And on the other hand it is the very use and attitude of the user, then correctly called ‘consumer’ in modernity, that does not see or attribute any special significance to the things he uses. And this is not limited to clothing, but to food, transport, housing and all the rest – given that all of it, in modernity, is ultimately disposable, none of it imbued with any particular ‘soul’ that makes it unique. Almost everything that surrounds modern men is taken to be devoid of soul, of life, of animation. Everything is taken as mere quantity without qualification, in perfect conformity with the inanimist conception.

Exactly like the idea of darwinist transformism, the idea of an inanimate universe is an aberration that could only arise in a post-Christian world, and in a very late phase, and that exists in stark contrast to all traditional worldviews, not only Christian, but of all religions (and even to the most basic intuition of man as such – children, as is easily seen, are naturally attuned to the souls in all things and only with time – and schooling – lose this natural capacity to see the sacred in nature, for example).

Yet Christians may be a bit worried that this idea smells too much of pantheism, or nature worship. To them, we can quote St. Maximus, when he says that ‘always in everything the Logos, the word of God, seeks to work the Miracle of His Incarnation’, or St. Athanasius who says ‘no part of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father’. The question is, thus, easily resolved by hierarchy, which is wisely observed by all Tradition: Man is the Full Image of God, the rest of Creation is a partial Image and cannot be otherwise. Perhaps quoting Our Lord is best of all, when he says to «Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these» (Matthew 6:28-29).

It is important for Christians to understand that belief does not necessarily entail faith, and recognition does not entail worship. For one example, a traditional Christian does not worship the Saints, but knowing them to be Alive, asks for their intercession next to Him that is in fact the object of worship. As such, there is a difference not only between recognition and worship, but also veneration and worship. For if we venerate a Saint, we worship only God, therefore putting things in their proper hierarchy, as the Scriptures and the Fathers tell us repeatedly to do. «By faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God; that from invisible things visible things might be made» (Hebrews 11:3).

The danger of the ‘inanimist’ conception is thus much greater than the types of neo-chthonic and earth-worship cults that seem to be arising as a response to the world created by the inanimist conception , because it is much harder to convince a modern materialist of the supremacy of Christ than it was to convince an ancient pagan or a contemporary ‘animist’. There is a vile phrase used a lot by atheists according to which an atheist differs from the Christian only in the sense that the atheist believes in ‘one fewer God’ – meaning that just like Christians are atheist towards pagan gods, the atheist goes one step further and also disbelieves the Biblical God. Such a sentence could only come from someone who maintains this inanimate view of the world, according to which neither God nor gods exist – that is, that reality is purely material, without any spiritual or animic dimension. Christians, however, are not atheists toward other gods – they simply reserve worship to the Trinitarian God, knowing that the other gods are, and contrary to the Most High, part of Creation by Him, and not necessarily benevolent – especially if they accept worship of themselves, because only a malevolent ‘spirit’ accepts worship knowing full well that he was created by the Most High (Psalm 82, 89 or 96 are particularly explicit about this, although in modern translations the original term ‘gods’ is replaced with ‘angels’; in chapter fifteen of Exodus, however, it is particularly explicit in its literal translation: «Who is like Thee among the gods, O Jehovah?»). 

It is worth noting also in relation to this question that the term ‘monotheism’ is first used to describe Christian belief in the XVII century (and by a philosopher, not a saint), and that despite being a composite word of Greek roots Monos (One) and Theos (God), none of the Fathers, most of them fluent in Greek, ever used this term. But it is perhaps in Psalm 148 that we find the most direct exposition of God’s place above all things, and the only one worthy of worship, reflecting at the same time the animistic conception in itself: «Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise ye him in the high places. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, O sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars and light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens: and let all the waters that are above the heavens Praise the name of the Lord. For he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created. He hath established them for ever, and for ages of ages: he hath made a decree, and it shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all ye deeps: Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds which fulfill his word: Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars: Beasts and all cattle: serpents and feathered fowls»

This idea of the atheist who believes in ‘one fewer God’, despite being wrong, is interesting for another reason – because it is precisely this path that the evolutionist anthropologists that invented and used the word ‘animism’ to describe the normal and healthy conception of reality pointed towards. That from the ‘inanimation’ of Creation would proceed, necessarily, the ‘inanimation’ of God – leaving only Man as master of everything, with no constraints other than his own whim and desire, able to subjugate everything to himself with no consideration for anything above or beyond him, free to do his own will instead of the Father’s – instead of the Lord’s prayer, the prayer of Man, which is also the prayer of the devil (‘do what thou wilt’).

The difference, therefore, between the pagan and the Christian conception is not that the pagan is animistic and the Christian is not, but that in Christ we know the proper hierarchy, that above the Living Creation there is a Living God – and that it is through Him that Creation lives – and we know that, being made in His image and likeness, we have a central role to play and a bigger responsibility, not by our power, but by our authority, which is given to us by God, to participate in Creation rather than destroy it, abuse it or subdue it for whatever profane end. For the modern inanimist conception, however, everything is dead, including God – because if Creation is dead, and is nothing more than matter, than the ‘god’ who created it is necessarily weak and does not participate in its renewal at every moment, nor can it be conceived any special role for Man by his origin, but only by his power, justifying every act no matter how destructive.

The danger of the inanimism that is inherent to the modern worldview, and that underlies how men live in our age, can seem insignificant from a Christian point of view (as it was during the first eighteen centuries) – but the fact is that this aberration is both cause and effect of the separation of Man from God – and in particular of the separation of Man from God in everyday life, in every moment and place, which in the traditional (animist) view are all and always imbued with the Divine – so that even the simple and mundane things, instead of profane, can be sanctified. That becomes impossible, and unjustifiable, from an inanimist point of view – leading to the common experience of God only in certain places and certain times, and to Him becoming in effect absent of our experience and thought outside of those places and times. And (no longer hypothetically) if we are prevented from visiting such places where God exists ‘officially’ what are we to do?

Inanimism makes void, in fact, all the practices which are inseparable from a living faith and tradition: veneration of saints, relics and icons, prayers like Hail Mary or other forms of intercession of the saints, prayers for the dead, the sign of the cross or blessing of houses and places, prayers before meals, wearing a crucifix or even Baptism and the Eucharist. None of them can be justified or understood from an inanimist point of view, except as mere metaphors (which is in fact how many understand them). And from the same perspective there is also no justification for the prohibition of certain practices such as divination or sorcery – the only reason to conceive such prohibitions is because a certain real, though illicit, power is recognized in them, which can only be derived from the animic substrate in created things, otherwise such practices would be mere fantasies against which the Church would have nothing to object (other than being a waste of time perhaps).

First by limiting Life to a mere biological category (so that a plant, an animal and a man are alive; but not a stone, a river or a book), this conception implicitly denies that Life is more than biology and, as such, when the flesh of a man dies, according to this conception, the man dies as well and nothing that was of him remains alive. Even those who nominally believe in a ‘life after death’, in the existence of the soul and the spirit, show then no connection between the two planes – between this world and the other, not knowing then what ‘life after death’ can possibly mean, the very expression, in the inanimistic conception, completely absurd. And as such the ‘resurrection in the body’ promised by Christ is also incomprehensible and it is therefore no surprise that so few modern ‘christians’ take it seriously.

The inanimism of modernity (whatever nominal form it may take, including ‘christian’) is the very negation that Life (that is Jesus Christ) is something more than mere biology – and by denying the Life that exists in all things, their animic and ultimately spiritual essence, it denies the Divine fountain from which it sprang and continues to spring, and that is ultimately and primarily Spiritual, that persists beyond the flesh and of which the flesh is in fact the lower manifestation.

As St. Irenaeus states in his book Against Heresies (whose full and original title is ‘On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis’): «For the Creator of the world is truly the Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man, existing in this world, and who in an invisible manner contains all things created, and is inherent in the entire creation, since the Word of God governs and arranges all things; and therefore He came to His own in a visible manner, and was made flesh, and hung upon the tree, that He might sum up all things in Himself.» (Book V, Chapter XVIII). The ‘so-called gnosis’ persists in our time, although in a yet more perverse and total form, declaring its knowledge of all things and yet understanding none, not even the most simple and basic substrate of reality – that everything is alive – and so that in our age the most aberrant and repugnant ideas, rejected by the consensus of every people and nation of previous ages, are not entertained by delinquents and madmen, but taught in schools, propagated by the media and defended by every institution. In short, by affirming that Creation is dead, modern man can do nothing else than to continually attempt to kill it.