Distinctive Formulations of Animism in the World

    Animistic motifs of personal and impersonal spiritual powers are combined to create a multitude of distinctive worldviews.  Spiritism, which stresses gods and spirits possessing mediums to divine for the living, is flourishing in Brazil.  Japanese Shintoism and Chinese Confucianism put great emphasis on filial respect for ancestors.  The Cargo Cult of Melanesia uses rituals to induce gods and spirits to give material benefits to the living.  Voodoo of Haiti highlights spiritual metamorphosis:  Spirits are thought to change form.  Humans might take animal shapes and mingle with zombies and spirits.  African traditional religionists believe that ancestors, spirits, and gods actively affect the living, and magical rituals must be used to manipulate them.  Folk Muslims attempt to harness the impersonal, yet benevolent spiritual power of baraka.  Christo-pagan Catholics appeal to saints as intercessors with God.  Roman Catholics frequently consider relics of saints as objects of veneration; Eastern Orthodox Christians assess the power of saints through their icons.  This brief sampling of animistic perspectives demonstrates that animistic customs are widespread and that different animistic motifs are emphasized in different areas.     

Diversity of Animistic Beliefs

    Although broad generalizations can be made about animistic beliefs, practices vary widely from society to society.  Even people living in close proximity may exhibit remarkable differences in worldview.  The Kipsigis, Kisii, and Luo are adjoining tribes in western Kenya.  The Kipsigis believe all spirits to be ancestors.  The Kisii and Luo, however, perceive the presence of ancestral spirits as well as other spirits who have never been human.  While witchcraft and sorcery are prevalent among the Kisii and Luo, these practices are less pronounced in Kipsigis.   On the other hand, ancestral blessings, which are not critical to Luo culture, play a significant role in Kipsigis, especially during marriage ceremonies and rites of passage into adulthood.  Animism in Kenya, therefore, is not a consistent worldview but a multiplicity of worldviews with similar characteristics.

    Such differences in worldviews are also apparent among spiritist groups in Brazil.  Kardecism, or high spiritism, advocates that spirits are people without bodies.  Condomble, or low spiritism, does not call upon the dead but seeks the guidance of certain African spirit guides.  

    Unlike Christianity, orthodox Islam, or traditional Hinduism, Animism does not present a consistent cosmology of viewing life.  

Animistic Perspectives in World Religions

    Although formative to the worldviews of some cultures, Animism is a stratum in every culture.  Smalley has written that "Animism is a nearly universal ingredient in all religions, and is not a religious system in itself" (1971, 24).  For example, an American baseball player may feel he will win by wearing a special pair of shoes; or a tennis player may believe that he does better if one ball is in his pocket rather than lying on the ground by the net; or he might be one of the 50 million Americans who read the astrological charts to determine how the alignment of the sun, moon, and stars will affect their day.  According to Parshall, 70 percent of all Islamic people are Folk Muslims and only 30 percent orthodox (1983, 16).  Animism and Islam are frequently "strangely mingled" with "theism and paganism" existing "side by side.  The prayer is made to the Almighty, the chapters read are from the Qur'an, but the whole character of the rite is pagan" (Zwemer 1920, 206).  "Islam and Animism live, in very neighborly fashion, on the same street and in the same mind" (1920, 207).   

    Similar statements could be made about Catholicism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.  Catholics reverently worship God yet venerate saints and believe in the power of relics to heal.  They frequently syncretize the Christian and the animistic.  Dan Coker speaks of an overt encounter with a wealthy, educated Brazilian who said, "My religion is Catholicism but my philosophy of life is Spiritism" (1990).  The Buddhist of Burma believes that desires of the human body must be subdued in order for him to enter nirvana, while manipulating numerous spirits, called nats, consumes his energies (Nida and Smalley 1959, 7-8).  The typical Hindu believes in the high religious concepts of karma, reincarnation, and samsara yet believes that rakasas ("evil spirits") and ancestors imminently impact life and, therefore, must be manipulated and controlled. 

    Thus many participants of world religions hold to high religious concepts yet continue to act and think animistically.  Hindus, who presume that human destiny is determined by karma, also believe in the powerful alignment of buildings.  A "wall casts a `look' up to 30 feet away and can crack adjacent walls if it looks at them at a weak point" (Hiebert 1978).  Chinese, who conceive of the world as an interplay between the forces of yin and yang, also use divination to determine why a family member has become gravely ill.  A Muslim, even though he prays to Allah five times a day bowing toward Mecca, might also be a sorcerer who derives power from possessing the names of five evil spirits written in Arabic script on individual papers (Entz 1986, 46). 

    Animism thus is a system of beliefs prevalent to some extent in all world cultures.  Frequently high religious perspectives and Animism coexist in the same heart.  Animists might even "worship the Lord but also serve their own gods" (2 Kings 17:33)! 

Works Cited

Coker, Dan. 1990. New mission opportunities in Communist countries--Latin America. Lecture given at Abilene Christian University Lectureship, 20 February, Abilene, TX.

Entz, Loren. 1986. Challenges to Abou's Jesus. Evangelical Missions Quarterly 20 (January): 46-50.

Hiebert, Paul G. 1978. Phenomenology and institutions of animism. Class syllabus from M620 at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA.

Nida, Eugene A., and William A. Smalley. 1959. Introducing Animism. New York: Friendship.

Parshall, Phil. 1983. Bridges to Islam. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Smalley, William A. 1971. Animism. In Concise Dictionary of the Christian World Mission, ed. Stephen C. Neill, 24-25. New York: Abingdon.

Zwemer, Samuel M. 1920. The Influence of Animism on Islam. New York: Macmillan.

Copyright ©2000 by Gailyn Van Rheenen -- excerpt from Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1996)

All rights reserved.   If you wish to copy this information, please e-mail Dr. Van Rheenen.