Animism ( from Latin anima " soul, life ") is a set of beliefs based on the existence of non-human " spiritual beings " or similar kinds of embodied principles.

Animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical ( or material ) world, and souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in all other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.

The term Animism appears to have been first developed as animismus by German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl, circa 1720, to refer to the " doctrine that animal life is produced by an immaterial soul.

Animism in the widest sense, i. e., thinking of objects as animate, and treating them as if they were animate, is near-universal.

Animism is a belief held in many religions around the world, and is not, as some have purported, a type of religion in itself.

Animism is not the same as Pantheism, although the two are sometimes confused.

Animism was also a concept common to many pre-Christian European religions, and in adopting it, contemporary Pagans are attempting to " reenter the primeval worldview " and participate in a view of cosmology " that is not possible for most Westerners after childhood.

Animism is the original religion of Veddas.

Animism is widespread ( 50 %), and its practices vary from one ethnic group to the other.

The multitude of minor deities of no mention in the scriptures have also been formed by the Janapadas i. e. the tribal masses over the centuries in a localised manner, which is true with most of the Oriental Paganism / Animism.

Animism is the native religion of most of the Mon – Khmer and more recent Hmong – Mien and Tibeto-Burman minorities, as well as the traditional religion of the Tais before Buddhism, although some Tai tribes to this day are still animist.

Animism, which is oldest known human spiritual practice, is the belief Elementals inhabit all things.

Animism is described as the belief in spirits inhabiting and animating beings, or souls existing in things.

The remainder is accounted for by other faiths, including Animism, Folk religion, Sikhism and other belief systems.

The religion is based in the anima ( soul ) of the natural environment, and is therefore a kind of Animism.

It is influenced primarily by Animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, as well as by later migrations from China, and southern India.

However, due to lack of interaction with the outside world, their religion is more related to Kejawen Animism, though they still retain many elements of Hindu-Buddhist religion influences, like the terms they use to define things and objects, and the rituals in their religious activities.

Nominally, Animism is the most popular practice, but recently most Tay people practice Mahayana Buddhism in combination with Taoism, under influenced of Vietnamese and Chinese culture.

: A Non-Takara / Hasbro Chinese-made toy was sold under a variety of bootleg and knockoff toy lines like " Beast Tech Robot Fighters " and " Animism Defenders " line which is actually more accurate to the cartoon version than the Deluxe or Blast Punch versions are.

The Naurus faith is a combination of Hinduism and Animism, but in recent years they also have adopted certain Protestant principles.

* In the game franchise Touhou Project, Utsuho is a raven who swallows the corpse of the Yatagarasu prior to the events of Subterranean Animism.

These tribes practiced a mixture of Islam and Animism beliefs.

Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology.

Examples of Animism can be found in forms of Shinto, Serer, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Pantheism, Paganism, and Neopaganism.

According to Tylor, the more scientifically advanced the society, the less that society believed in Animism ; however, any remnant ideologies of souls or spirits, to Tylor, represented “ survivals ” of the original animism of early humanity.

" Animism Revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology ", Current Anthropology 40, pp. 67 – 91.

Animism and Paganism are also followed.

The Chepangs themselves follow Animism, although they are strongly influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, which came from the Tamangs just north of them.

Traditionally Tuareg practiced Animism.

More likely though, the alteration in the story of Hariti and her successful conversion to Buddhism seems to be an early strategy with which to convert the predominantly Iranic Gandharans from Zoroastrianism, and Animism to Buddhism.

Poetry in Persian life is far more than a common ground on which -- in a society deeply fissured by antagonisms -- all may stand.

Before merging them into a common profile it is well to remember that their separate careers were extraordinary.

This almost trivial example is nevertheless suggestive, for there are some elements in common between the antique fear that the days would get shorter and shorter and our present fear of war.

Harold Clurman is right to say that `` Waiting For Godot '' is a reflection ( he calls it a distorted reflection ) `` of the impasse and disarray of Europe's present politics, ethic, and common way of life ''.

However, it is important to trace the philosophy of the French Revolution to its sources to understand the common democratic origin of individualism and socialism and the influence of the latter on the former.

But it is the need to undertake these testaments that I would submit here as symptom of the common man's malaise.

As symptomatic of the common man's malaise, he is most significant: a liberal and a Catholic, elected by the skin of his teeth.

What is the common man's complaint??

But what a super-Herculean task it is to winnow anything of value from the mud-beplastered arguments used so freely, particularly since such common use is made of cliches and stereotypes, in themselves declarations of intellectual bankruptcy.

The men who speculate on these institutions have, for the most part, come to at least one common conclusion: that many of the great enterprises and associations around which our democracy is formed are in themselves autocratic in nature, and possessed of power which can be used to frustrate the citizen who is trying to assert his individuality in the modern world ''.

They all have this in common: the earth is situated near the center of the deferent.

But that one should superimpose all these charts, run a pin through the common point, and then scale each planetary deferent larger and smaller ( to keep the epicycles from ' bumping ' ), this is contrary to any intention Ptolemy ever expresses.

Now this concern for the freedom of other peoples is the intellectual and spiritual cement which has allied us with more than forty other nations in a common defense effort.

A common meeting ground is desirable for those nations which are prepared to assist in the development effort.

Conventional images of Jews have this in common with all perceptions of a configuration in which one feature is held constant: images can be both true and false.

If art is to release us from these postulated things ( things we must think symbolically about ) and bring us back to the ineffable beauty and richness of the aesthetic component of reality in its immediacy, it must sever its connection with these common sense entities ''.

In the wide range of experiences common to our earth-bound race none is more difficult to manage, more troublesome, and more enduring in its effects than the control of love and hate.

`` History has this in common with every other science: that the historian is not allowed to claim any single piece of knowledge, except where he can justify his claim by exhibiting to himself in the first place, and secondly to any one else who is both able and willing to follow his demonstration, the grounds upon which it is based.

To obey the moral law is just ordinary common sense, applied to a neglected field.

British common sense is proverbial.