animism

In anthropology, the belief that everything, whether animate or inanimate, possesses a soul or spirit. It is a fundamental system of belief in certain religions, particularly those of some pre-industrial societies. Linked with this is the worship of natural objects such as stones and trees, thought to harbour spirits (naturism); fetishism; and ancestor worship.

In psychology and physiology, animism is the view of human personality that attributes human life and behaviour to a force distinct from matter. In developmental psychology, an animistic stage in the early thought and speech of the child has been described, notably by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.

In philosophy, the view that in all things consciousness or something mindlike exists.

In religious theory, the conception of a spiritual reality behind the material one: for example, beliefs in the soul as a shadowy duplicate of the body capable of independent activity, both in life and death.

The German chemist Georg Stahl first applied the term ‘animism’ in the early 18th century to the doctrine that all phenomena peculiar to the animal world are produced by an immaterial ‘soul’ or vital principle distinct from matter. However, Edward Tylor in Primitive Culture 1871 defined animism as the attribution of a living soul to inanimate objects and natural phenomena, and the term is now generally used in that sense.