Animism
«The ultimate source of the term animism is the Latin word, anima, meaning spirit, soul, or life force. In contemporary anthropology, animism is the generic term for numerous and diverse religions focused on the belief that nature includes spirits, sacred forces, and similar extraordinary phenomena. This is reflected in the classic minimal definition of religion, a belief in spiritual beings, that was originally formulated by the famous British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his 1871 book Primitive Cultures. Tylor viewed animism as the basis of all religions and the earliest stage in the evolution of religion. Animism remains relevant to considerations regarding such elemental conceptual dualities as animal and human, nature and culture, natural and supernatural, inanimate and animate, body and mind, and life and death. In general, animists believe that supernatural forces inhabit animals, plants, rocks, and other objects in nature. These forces are envisioned as spirits o...