quotations about animism
A poisoned milieu must be reclaimed, and so must many of our words, those that--like "animism" and "magic"--carry with them the power to take us hostage: do you "really" believe in...?
ISABELLE STENGERS
"Reclaiming Animism", e-flux, summer 2012
The old usage constructed animists as people who did not or could not distinguish correctly between objects and subjects, or between things and persons. This new animism names worldviews and lifeways in which people seek to know how they might respectfully and properly engage with other persons. Knowing that people, human and other-than-human, can be deceitful and devious, and that there are tricksters and anti-social persons in the world, means that it is important to look out for masks, illusions, deceptions, tricks of perception and false claims. Knowing that relationships and reality are fraught with ambiguity means that it is important to attend to stories and their endless ramifications rather than seek the definitive closure of creeds or conclusions. Knowing that some people might want to eat us means that it is wise to be cautious as well as constructive in our respectful encounters with other persons.
GRAHAM HARVEY
preface, Animism: Respecting the Living World
Equally confused is the common lay definition that the animist believes there is "spirit" in everything. On that basis, animism is often deposited into the box of dualistic faiths without further consideration. For such spirits are not thought of as breath; here spirit and soul are conflated and the spirit of a mountain, a waterfall, a tree, is imagined to be a discarnate soul, resident in -- but separable from -- the physical form. While the dualist of a monotheistic tradition may consider the immaterial soul to be found only in human beings, and occasionally more recently in other mammals, the animist is assumed to believe that same concept of soul present in a much wider selection of bodies within nature, perhaps every body. To someone looking at animist ideas from outside, such beliefs may seem close to the immature response of a little child still wondering at how the world around him might respond. Yet such a view of animism is childish; it equates to the notion of Yahweh as an old man on a cloud. It is religious metaphysics drawn with fat, colourful crayons. Such a cartoon begins with an entirely erroneous understanding of spirit.
EMMA RESTALL ORR
The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature
I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. Look at the sun: If there is no sun, then we cannot exist. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
attributed, Renewal in the Wilderness
Nothing is so small and unimportant but it has a spirit given to it by Wakan Tanka. Tunkan is what you might call a stone god, but he is also part of the Great Spirit. The gods are separate beings, but they are all united in Wakan Tanka. It is hard to understand -- something like the Holy Trinity. You can't explain it except by going back to the "circles within circles" idea, the spirit splitting itself up into stones, trees, tiny insects even, making them all wakan by his ever-presence. And in turn all these myriad of things which make up the universe flowing back to their source, united in the one Grandfather Spirit.
JOHN LAME DEER
Seeker of Visions
Anything that has a shape will crumble away. Anything in a flock will disband. We are all like bees, alone in this world, buzzing and searching with no place to rest. So we offer this prayer: "Delusions are as various as reflections of the moon on a rippling sea. Beings so easily become caught in a net of confused pain. May I develop compassion boundless as the sky, so that all may rest in the clear light of their own awareness."
BARDO THODOL
The Tibetan Book of the Dead