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 is common among the mountain tribes.

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.

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.

Protestantism ( 25 %), Catholicism ( 16 %), Islam ( 14 %), and Animism ( 24 %) provide a pluralistic religious makeup of the country.

Sheldrake in his book The Rebirth of Nature: New Science and the Revival of Animism ( 1991 ) has claimed that Morphic fields " animate organisms at all levels of complexity, from galaxies to giraffes, and from ants to atoms ".

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

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.

The Bugis in 1605 converted to Islam from Animism.

The Ati-Atihan was originally a pagan festival from this tribe practicing Animism, and their worshiping their anito god.

In the 1940s, the Zaghawa began to turn to Islam from Animism en masse.

These ethnic groups are again divided in hundreds of clans and sects, principally dominated by four religious threads-Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Animism.

Offenses to nature were like those to other people, and Animism reinforced this by giving nature " personality " via myth.

Other tribals, notably those who practice Animism, have come under some Buddhist influence, and this is true in the case of the Khumi and the Mru, and to a lesser extent on the other tribals.

Unlike the other Naga, the Wancho, together with the Nocte and a small minority of the Konyak, still retain the belief of Animism.

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.

These tribes practiced a mixture of Islam and Animism beliefs.

Traditionally Tuareg practiced Animism.

Finally we may note that the idea appears in educational theory where its influence is at present widespread.

It is, I insist, hard to define the Rayburn contribution to our political civilization because it is so massive and so widespread and so complicated, and because it goes so deep.

As mentioned, the primary allocation objective to be followed in the allocation of stations on clear channels is the provision of widespread service, free from destructive interference.

Average consumer is becoming more sophisticated regarding product and advertising claims, partly because of widespread criticism of such assertions.

Now, you probably share the widespread Western belief that the Lord Buddha is the most compassionate of the gods, much more so than Jehovah and Allah and the rest.

Upon consideration of the variety of soils and fabrics normally encountered in the washing process, it is little wonder that the use of a number of detergent constituents having `` synergistic '' properties has gained widespread acceptance.

How widespread is alienation??

U.S. coal is cheap, despite high wages, because of widespread mechanization of mines, wide coal seams, attactive rates on ocean freight.

One of the most widespread features of contemporary thought is the almost universal disbelief in the reality of spirit.

However, even if the latent demand for demythologization is not nearly as widespread as we are claiming, at least among the cultured elements of the population there tends to be an almost complete indifference to the church and its traditional message of sin and grace.

A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this.

The 1 / 4 abacus, which is suited to decimal calculation, appeared circa 1930, and became widespread as the Japanese abandoned hexadecimal weight calculation which was still common in China.

Since the widespread adoption of digital setting circles, any classical engraved setting circle is now specifically identified as an " analog setting circle " ( ASC ).

Rain-fed cultivation is widespread, with wheat being the principal crop.

This is primarily due to the widespread usage of the Aramaic language as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian, and its successor, the Achaemenid Empire.

A further suggestion is that the widespread use of timber in Chacoan constructions — a resource not locally available — needed a large and easy transportation system.

While the use of iron started to become more widespread around 1200 BC, mainly because of interruptions in the trade routes for tin, the metal is much softer than bronze.

ASL is perhaps the most widespread of the world's sign languages, though BANZSL is also spoken around the world.

Countries where ASL or a derivative of ASL is the national or a widespread language include Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana ( with BSL ), Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d ' Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya ( minority use ), Liberia, Madagascar ( minority use ), Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines ( L2 use ), Puerto Rico, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, and Zimbabwe ( with ZSL ).

However, the use of AU to refer to the astronomical unit is widespread.

This technique is the most widespread method of computing amplitudes in quantum field theory today.

The largest species are red alder ( A. rubra ) on the west coast of North America, and black alder ( A. glutinosa ), native to most of Europe and widely introduced elsewhere, both reaching over 30 m. By contrast, the widespread Alnus viridis ( green alder ) is rarely more than a 5 m tall shrub.

It is clear that widespread respect was paid to animals as the abode of dead ancestors, and much of the cults to dangerous animals is traceable to this principle ; though there is no need to attribute an animistic origin to it.