Neoanimism. There, I said it. Most of us did not learn animism from our family, just like we call it neopaganism. On another note, where I live the indigeneous communities do share teachings, though I rarely ever hear anyone here call anything animism. Yet, Harvey's definition fits. Applying the Seven Granfather teachings or medicine wheel has profound effect on relations with others and really lowers ethno- and anthro-centric limitations. It deconstrcts colonial-thinking opens the mind. At least that's been my experience. I just hope I can teach my kids by example and through stories so they can see the world in an animist-way without any label.
You know what, I think you're right! "Neoanimism" is exactly what we're witnessing here. I think most indigenous animists don't even use such labels, which makes sense considering that the term was coined by a white man as a descriptor for all peoples whose life philosophy matches the parameters. So it's kind of ironic in itself that we use the term "animism" as a reclaimed descriptor to signify our worldview. But ultimately, all these labels don't matter at all. As you say -- the real work lies in deconstructing our internalized anthropocentrism and colonialism, as well as modeling this way of life to our children through the way we live our life. Thank you so much for chiming in on this!
I'm Lakota (aka Sioux/Native American) and my family has always practiced animism. It's a core belief and part of Native cultures across the vast difference of tribal identities.
Well presented loose thoughts! I view Animism is a perspective, a view on life/nature, or as you said I think, a lifestyle. I tend to stay out of the "community,'" so it's a bit surprising to me that it's become an identity or self-labeling thing. 🧙🏼♀️🐸♥️
Thank you so much! Seems like we perceive it similarly then. Honestly, you're probably better off staying out of it all, it's becoming progressively more confusing and confused 😆
that you remain polite throughout is a lovely thing. I am personally fed up entirely with what I have come to call the "commercial, holier than thou witch-lite" crowd. I feel that this is a pretty natural, if annoying, reaction from the newly non-Christian/ non-religious crowd. My understanding and reading, your explanation of animism predating the pantheon is perfect. I appreciate your expertise and clarity. ❤
just thank you.. my soul, mind & body feels so drained from this world & the way humans act like they're so spiritual & ascended. it's refreshing to hear someone be so afar from that sheeple mentality and actually recognize the issues of the modern human spirit.. never stop being you ♡
Challenging our beliefs is a great habit. However, changing labels without deeper understanding and reflection is useless. Thank you for reminding about this book, I need to finally pick it up.
THIS!!!! Thank you for sharing your 'loose' thoughts -that you communicated so well! I agree so much with your analysis. For me it boils down to two things and it totally turns me off. The two things are: when people use qualifying descriptors to describe their 'flavour' of animism, what they are in fact doing is a) "branding" themselves to establish their place in the "trend" and b) it demonstrates their complete lack of knowledge and comprehension of what Animism actually is. 💩like this always dredges up my deep-rooted desire to retreat from the online spaces altogether and go live in the woods in a house built on chicken feet. 🐸🖤
Thank you! ❤🔥 I couldn't agree more tbh -- seems like we're on the same page yet again (and I love it)! 🙌 I also think that it has more to do with folks trying to create a unique niche for branding their online biz or influencer persona, rather than a genuine label that has to do with their beliefs and craft. Animism really doesn't need these additional labels and descriptors, it's absolutely complete without them. Sure, we can identify as multiple things at the same time, but synthetically merging these labels only creates confusion and division. Also, mood, let's disappear into the forest and never be seen again 😆
Great video as always! To me as someone almost entirely disengaged from the "community," one of the oddest things about these proliferations of micro-identities online within witchcraft and spirituality is it seems it can create this pressure to adopt one yourself, especially if you're more inexperienced. I'm pretty new to witchcraft and it's been so jarring to see (in the anglosphere) so much surface-level talk about opposing capitalism, ecocide, etc juxtaposed with all sorts of marketing junk. Thankfully, I'm quite offline and most of the witches I know in my area are pretty heavy on organizing and light on nonsense. But online, it seems to be one of many small but omnipresent "morbid symptoms"...
Thank you for sharing your observations! I agree, it does seem to be very surface level online. I’m not sure if it’s just the way these platforms are structured, or whether it’s truly reflective of people’s shallow engagement in the movements they declare to be part of. Perhaps both. I’m all in for less nonsense & more organising for actual local change! ✊🏻
This is such a fantastic discussion, you explained the differences in terminology so well. I have a brain that quite enjoys a box or a label, but in this area they are so limiting and restrictive and distracting, thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed my rambles. And I totally agree with you that generally speaking labels can be very helpful, however it's important to see where they become a restriction or where they obscure the broader truth as well. Cheers!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! Ever since I realised that my way of viewing the reality aligns well with animism, I've been prety content to just call myself an animist. It felt like a missing puzzle suddenly appeared to fill in the annoying gap. I think that because of my upbringing I kept spending energy on denying what I felt was true deep inside. "There are no ghosts, there are no fairies" I would tell myself, but it has always been accompanied with a hidden disappointment. Now I am finally able to let go and just admit what I feel. It's such a relief! Forming bonds with persons is fascinating for me, even though I'm not doing anything "spectacular". I want to take my time and do things when I am ready for them. And so, just sitting in silence with my beloved dead or with the faeries is a joy for me. I don't know if I have answered your question xD Anyway, I feel that I am an animist and am pretty excited to explore this way of perceiving reality, baby step by baby step. I do have relationships with Slavic gods. For the time being, they are a specific type of Person and I feel they are bigger (if you know what I mean), but I am far to creating a precise label for myself - maybe I won't ever be in that place, haha. I am open to exploring and following the flow. Labeling myself too soon (or at all) would be to constricting, I think,
I totally understand how you feel. Finding animism has been a huge relief on my path as well. It's been present all along but I didn't know the word for it -- learning it helped things click into place and stop searching in the wrong places.
I’m glad you are posting this. I’m new to Animism as a practice, though I have core values that feel natural with it. I’m learning as total blank slate.
i'm not very into occult stuff, i'm a little interested in theosophy and esoteric stuff at best, but that's good insight! the brief history lesson is interesting. kinda strange for me to imagine a time before polytheism and our idea of hierarchal social structures. i'm not too informed on history before the Caste system developed. also i think you described monism very well! 'substance' is the word philosophers like Spinoza used to describe the unifying material everything can be reduced down to. i feel like folks, given the rise of loneliness, are looking for whatever shortcuts to present themselves as 'good', therefore worthy of care or whatever, but they haven't worked through solipsism. language often being the easiest shortcut for most. there's a selfishness in them that tends to harm more than help because of their solitary perspective. which i find kinda tragic tbh. i don't think most are doing it maliciously. i think most just want to feel like they belong here on earth, and that there is a place for them. that's a whole other thing though :| good point on the use of scientific language being anthropocentric. i find a lot of those folks naively use dialect materialism to try and invoke a godly authority who is objectively right. honestly, Donna Haraway's term 'the god trick' is such a fantastic phrase to describe the dialect games people play, and it's so fitting for what you were describing. it's a lot easier to imagine stuff, then understand stuff. folks can imagine how they are 'right' with much less effort than it takes to understand how they can be wrong. if that makes sense
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful comment! I also don’t think people do this entirely consciously or maliciously, it just seems to be hard to shake off that anthropocentrism fully and - totally, as you mentioned - solipsism too! As a result, there’s these word games and mind games that folks get stuck in, in search for existential meaning and belonging. The psychology of this fascinates me without end.
@@polishfolkwitch you're welcome! you gave a lot interesting ideas for me to build off of! i think Hannah Arendt's description of the will and nill (basically meaning 'not willing' as in the opposite of will) is why so many people do play those word games. hard for me to accurately explain, but if you imagine the will as this force guiding one to their 'correct' path, acting in ways that conflict with the will ends up creating nill. given how much tech has connected all parts of life, it is very difficult to act according to one's own specific will and succeed. people essentially get trapped in their own mind, and i don't think they like it. but they also don't want to stop, meditate, and let go of their nill or negative feelings. there's an addiction to secrets those folks tend to love cause their true selves are a secret to everyone. psychologically, i think it's people who lack 'theory of mind', which is basically the understanding that others have the same mental capabilities as one's self. i'm almost positive there's a similar thought or teaching in occult practices. if you know what that might be, please let me know! regardless i get the sense you have figured that out by your use of anthropocentrism. sorry to ramble. i do kinda feel clairvoyant in a sense but i hate speaking for people, so i tend to be overly verbose to compensate.
For me I will sometimes use non-theist animist because the presumption of believe in deities in Witchcraft is so strong that sometimes it's hard to find people who share a similar belief or lack thereof. A bit like Queerness it can be helpful to be specific. Queer is often general enough but I specify Lesbian and Non-binary because it helps me find community or resources that are most relevant. The more I explore animism the more I feel animism itself is the best and broadest term I can use to describe my Witchcraft. However the animists who shout the loudest are often polytheist and so this might be why non-theism has come up more because of a need for that space. Ultimately animism does seem like the default setting for humanity and so other contructs layered on top of it often seem clunky. As you say the word animist is enough just like Witch and it can be tiring to subcategorise but it can aid in focusing study and support.
@@dothemagicalthing Thank you so much for sharing your perspective! That makes perfect sense and I hope it’s proven to be helpful in finding like minded people. I agree that the community is very saturated with polytheists who consider themselves animists which can be annoying to navigate. By the way, I’m very curious - do you not believe in the existence of deities at all, or do you perceive them as spirits rather than deities? Are spirits part of your animism? If you feel like sharing I’d love to understand it better from your point of view 🙏🏻❣️
@polishfolkwitch Happy to share: for me, I use the term Non-theist because it has less cultural baggage than Atheist. Atheist just means lack of belief in deities but people and society use it to mean Materialist which rejects all supernatural and spiritual belief. Using the term Non-theist means people have to pause and think for a moment rather than jump to a conclusion of meaning in their mind. But really Non-theist describes what I am not and Animist describes what I am so I prefer to use the positive, or the term that actually describes who I am. Until I encounter situations where Non-theist visibility is important. I don't believe in deities being above the Spirit community like I see some Witches interact with them like, I think they are just Spirits who get paid more attention than others. I often think, when people get hyperfixated on deities, what would a frog think of this, do cows think humans are silly because they don't worship a grass god? When you decentre humanity, deity becomes a small concept. I think humans do enough worshipping of their own form and it gets in the way of understanding other forms of personhood. If I believe in anything it's Connection, as we all seem to be from the same material from the Big Bang and so share a connection that I believe can be communicated in different ways through creative actions. Those three C's are my philosophy. I did a video about them some time back but I really should update it!
@@dothemagicalthing Thanks a lot for elaborating on this further! Looks like we share the same views in this regard. I’m also not fond of the anthropocentric favouring of deities above other spirits, it stems from human-made hierarchies and goes against animism imo. Yet, I don’t feel I need the label of non-theist but I can now better understand and appreciate why some prefer to make this distinction very clear. Cheers, great convo ❣️🫶🏻 I’ll have to check out your video!
I have never heard of this. I understand Animism to be recognizing and co-existing with a network of spirirs that are connwcted to oneness, for lack of betrer words. I think the arguement is the oness coyld mean a a god or just enwrgy. If given power it turns to its own enity. I feel it is its own concept. It def impacted our later practuces though. It's also too easy to clump similar practices together, especially a more modern perspective without listening and trying to understand. I think few people talk about the differences berween an entity, energy, entity of an idea, spirit of a place or object. There are also language barriers too. It is sometimes difficult to translate these concepts, so ancient practices are often taught watered down and studying is up ro you, but a lot of people don't take that extra etep.
I think it's important not to confuse animism as a worldview (which I defined in a very concrete way at the beginning of the video) VS various cultural / traditional / indigenous practices that stem from animism. I agree with you that people often take certain practices without fully understanding them, watering them down or misunderstanding due to language / culture barriers however that is a separate topic.
Neoanimism. There, I said it. Most of us did not learn animism from our family, just like we call it neopaganism. On another note, where I live the indigeneous communities do share teachings, though I rarely ever hear anyone here call anything animism. Yet, Harvey's definition fits. Applying the Seven Granfather teachings or medicine wheel has profound effect on relations with others and really lowers ethno- and anthro-centric limitations. It deconstrcts colonial-thinking opens the mind. At least that's been my experience. I just hope I can teach my kids by example and through stories so they can see the world in an animist-way without any label.
You know what, I think you're right! "Neoanimism" is exactly what we're witnessing here.
I think most indigenous animists don't even use such labels, which makes sense considering that the term was coined by a white man as a descriptor for all peoples whose life philosophy matches the parameters. So it's kind of ironic in itself that we use the term "animism" as a reclaimed descriptor to signify our worldview. But ultimately, all these labels don't matter at all. As you say -- the real work lies in deconstructing our internalized anthropocentrism and colonialism, as well as modeling this way of life to our children through the way we live our life. Thank you so much for chiming in on this!
I'm Lakota (aka Sioux/Native American) and my family has always practiced animism. It's a core belief and part of Native cultures across the vast difference of tribal identities.
Well presented loose thoughts! I view Animism is a perspective, a view on life/nature, or as you said I think, a lifestyle. I tend to stay out of the "community,'" so it's a bit surprising to me that it's become an identity or self-labeling thing. 🧙🏼♀️🐸♥️
Thank you so much! Seems like we perceive it similarly then. Honestly, you're probably better off staying out of it all, it's becoming progressively more confusing and confused 😆
that you remain polite throughout is a lovely thing. I am personally fed up entirely with what I have come to call the "commercial, holier than thou witch-lite" crowd. I feel that this is a pretty natural, if annoying, reaction from the newly non-Christian/ non-religious crowd.
My understanding and reading, your explanation of animism predating the pantheon is perfect. I appreciate your expertise and clarity. ❤
Thank you for chiming in ❤️🔥
just thank you..
my soul, mind & body feels so drained from this world & the way humans act like they're so spiritual & ascended. it's refreshing to hear someone be so afar from that sheeple mentality and actually recognize the issues of the modern human spirit..
never stop being you ♡
@@lone-welf Thank you so much! 🫶🏻
Challenging our beliefs is a great habit. However, changing labels without deeper understanding and reflection is useless. Thank you for reminding about this book, I need to finally pick it up.
Absolutely agreed! And totally, it's one of those books that are really worth picking up.
THIS!!!! Thank you for sharing your 'loose' thoughts -that you communicated so well! I agree so much with your analysis. For me it boils down to two things and it totally turns me off. The two things are: when people use qualifying descriptors to describe their 'flavour' of animism, what they are in fact doing is a) "branding" themselves to establish their place in the "trend" and b) it demonstrates their complete lack of knowledge and comprehension of what Animism actually is. 💩like this always dredges up my deep-rooted desire to retreat from the online spaces altogether and go live in the woods in a house built on chicken feet. 🐸🖤
😄
Thank you! ❤🔥 I couldn't agree more tbh -- seems like we're on the same page yet again (and I love it)! 🙌 I also think that it has more to do with folks trying to create a unique niche for branding their online biz or influencer persona, rather than a genuine label that has to do with their beliefs and craft. Animism really doesn't need these additional labels and descriptors, it's absolutely complete without them. Sure, we can identify as multiple things at the same time, but synthetically merging these labels only creates confusion and division.
Also, mood, let's disappear into the forest and never be seen again 😆
Great video as always! To me as someone almost entirely disengaged from the "community," one of the oddest things about these proliferations of micro-identities online within witchcraft and spirituality is it seems it can create this pressure to adopt one yourself, especially if you're more inexperienced. I'm pretty new to witchcraft and it's been so jarring to see (in the anglosphere) so much surface-level talk about opposing capitalism, ecocide, etc juxtaposed with all sorts of marketing junk.
Thankfully, I'm quite offline and most of the witches I know in my area are pretty heavy on organizing and light on nonsense. But online, it seems to be one of many small but omnipresent "morbid symptoms"...
Thank you for sharing your observations! I agree, it does seem to be very surface level online. I’m not sure if it’s just the way these platforms are structured, or whether it’s truly reflective of people’s shallow engagement in the movements they declare to be part of. Perhaps both.
I’m all in for less nonsense & more organising for actual local change! ✊🏻
This is such a fantastic discussion, you explained the differences in terminology so well. I have a brain that quite enjoys a box or a label, but in this area they are so limiting and restrictive and distracting, thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed my rambles. And I totally agree with you that generally speaking labels can be very helpful, however it's important to see where they become a restriction or where they obscure the broader truth as well. Cheers!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!
Ever since I realised that my way of viewing the reality aligns well with animism, I've been prety content to just call myself an animist. It felt like a missing puzzle suddenly appeared to fill in the annoying gap. I think that because of my upbringing I kept spending energy on denying what I felt was true deep inside. "There are no ghosts, there are no fairies" I would tell myself, but it has always been accompanied with a hidden disappointment. Now I am finally able to let go and just admit what I feel. It's such a relief! Forming bonds with persons is fascinating for me, even though I'm not doing anything "spectacular". I want to take my time and do things when I am ready for them. And so, just sitting in silence with my beloved dead or with the faeries is a joy for me.
I don't know if I have answered your question xD Anyway, I feel that I am an animist and am pretty excited to explore this way of perceiving reality, baby step by baby step. I do have relationships with Slavic gods. For the time being, they are a specific type of Person and I feel they are bigger (if you know what I mean), but I am far to creating a precise label for myself - maybe I won't ever be in that place, haha. I am open to exploring and following the flow. Labeling myself too soon (or at all) would be to constricting, I think,
I think it could take a lifetime, if ever, to find the right label!
@@creelandfeather I would ask myself why do I even need to label myself?
@@MaryGraceFahrun Yes indeed.
I totally understand how you feel. Finding animism has been a huge relief on my path as well. It's been present all along but I didn't know the word for it -- learning it helped things click into place and stop searching in the wrong places.
@@polishfolkwitch oh I believe it. Once we understand animism, it places our entire folk practices into context.
I love this topic, so thank you.
❤🔥❤🔥
anthropocentric..
just learned my new favorite word.
I’m glad you are posting this. I’m new to Animism as a practice, though I have core values that feel natural with it. I’m learning as total blank slate.
Thank you!
Interesting work and insight 🤔 thank you for sharing said words
i'm not very into occult stuff, i'm a little interested in theosophy and esoteric stuff at best, but that's good insight! the brief history lesson is interesting. kinda strange for me to imagine a time before polytheism and our idea of hierarchal social structures. i'm not too informed on history before the Caste system developed. also i think you described monism very well! 'substance' is the word philosophers like Spinoza used to describe the unifying material everything can be reduced down to.
i feel like folks, given the rise of loneliness, are looking for whatever shortcuts to present themselves as 'good', therefore worthy of care or whatever, but they haven't worked through solipsism. language often being the easiest shortcut for most. there's a selfishness in them that tends to harm more than help because of their solitary perspective. which i find kinda tragic tbh. i don't think most are doing it maliciously. i think most just want to feel like they belong here on earth, and that there is a place for them. that's a whole other thing though :|
good point on the use of scientific language being anthropocentric. i find a lot of those folks naively use dialect materialism to try and invoke a godly authority who is objectively right. honestly, Donna Haraway's term 'the god trick' is such a fantastic phrase to describe the dialect games people play, and it's so fitting for what you were describing. it's a lot easier to imagine stuff, then understand stuff. folks can imagine how they are 'right' with much less effort than it takes to understand how they can be wrong. if that makes sense
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful comment! I also don’t think people do this entirely consciously or maliciously, it just seems to be hard to shake off that anthropocentrism fully and - totally, as you mentioned - solipsism too! As a result, there’s these word games and mind games that folks get stuck in, in search for existential meaning and belonging. The psychology of this fascinates me without end.
@@polishfolkwitch you're welcome! you gave a lot interesting ideas for me to build off of! i think Hannah Arendt's description of the will and nill (basically meaning 'not willing' as in the opposite of will) is why so many people do play those word games.
hard for me to accurately explain, but if you imagine the will as this force guiding one to their 'correct' path, acting in ways that conflict with the will ends up creating nill. given how much tech has connected all parts of life, it is very difficult to act according to one's own specific will and succeed. people essentially get trapped in their own mind, and i don't think they like it. but they also don't want to stop, meditate, and let go of their nill or negative feelings. there's an addiction to secrets those folks tend to love cause their true selves are a secret to everyone.
psychologically, i think it's people who lack 'theory of mind', which is basically the understanding that others have the same mental capabilities as one's self.
i'm almost positive there's a similar thought or teaching in occult practices. if you know what that might be, please let me know! regardless i get the sense you have figured that out by your use of anthropocentrism. sorry to ramble. i do kinda feel clairvoyant in a sense but i hate speaking for people, so i tend to be overly verbose to compensate.
For me I will sometimes use non-theist animist because the presumption of believe in deities in Witchcraft is so strong that sometimes it's hard to find people who share a similar belief or lack thereof.
A bit like Queerness it can be helpful to be specific. Queer is often general enough but I specify Lesbian and Non-binary because it helps me find community or resources that are most relevant.
The more I explore animism the more I feel animism itself is the best and broadest term I can use to describe my Witchcraft. However the animists who shout the loudest are often polytheist and so this might be why non-theism has come up more because of a need for that space.
Ultimately animism does seem like the default setting for humanity and so other contructs layered on top of it often seem clunky.
As you say the word animist is enough just like Witch and it can be tiring to subcategorise but it can aid in focusing study and support.
@@dothemagicalthing Thank you so much for sharing your perspective! That makes perfect sense and I hope it’s proven to be helpful in finding like minded people. I agree that the community is very saturated with polytheists who consider themselves animists which can be annoying to navigate. By the way, I’m very curious - do you not believe in the existence of deities at all, or do you perceive them as spirits rather than deities? Are spirits part of your animism? If you feel like sharing I’d love to understand it better from your point of view 🙏🏻❣️
@polishfolkwitch Happy to share: for me, I use the term Non-theist because it has less cultural baggage than Atheist. Atheist just means lack of belief in deities but people and society use it to mean Materialist which rejects all supernatural and spiritual belief. Using the term Non-theist means people have to pause and think for a moment rather than jump to a conclusion of meaning in their mind.
But really Non-theist describes what I am not and Animist describes what I am so I prefer to use the positive, or the term that actually describes who I am. Until I encounter situations where Non-theist visibility is important.
I don't believe in deities being above the Spirit community like I see some Witches interact with them like, I think they are just Spirits who get paid more attention than others. I often think, when people get hyperfixated on deities, what would a frog think of this, do cows think humans are silly because they don't worship a grass god? When you decentre humanity, deity becomes a small concept. I think humans do enough worshipping of their own form and it gets in the way of understanding other forms of personhood.
If I believe in anything it's Connection, as we all seem to be from the same material from the Big Bang and so share a connection that I believe can be communicated in different ways through creative actions. Those three C's are my philosophy. I did a video about them some time back but I really should update it!
@@dothemagicalthing Thanks a lot for elaborating on this further! Looks like we share the same views in this regard. I’m also not fond of the anthropocentric favouring of deities above other spirits, it stems from human-made hierarchies and goes against animism imo. Yet, I don’t feel I need the label of non-theist but I can now better understand and appreciate why some prefer to make this distinction very clear. Cheers, great convo ❣️🫶🏻 I’ll have to check out your video!
@polishfolkwitch yes I think we have a similar take on things. Thank you for the lovely conversation!
I have never heard of this. I understand Animism to be recognizing and co-existing with a network of spirirs that are connwcted to oneness, for lack of betrer words. I think the arguement is the oness coyld mean a a god or just enwrgy. If given power it turns to its own enity. I feel it is its own concept. It def impacted our later practuces though. It's also too easy to clump similar practices together, especially a more modern perspective without listening and trying to understand. I think few people talk about the differences berween an entity, energy, entity of an idea, spirit of a place or object. There are also language barriers too. It is sometimes difficult to translate these concepts, so ancient practices are often taught watered down and studying is up ro you, but a lot of people don't take that extra etep.
I think it's important not to confuse animism as a worldview (which I defined in a very concrete way at the beginning of the video) VS various cultural / traditional / indigenous practices that stem from animism. I agree with you that people often take certain practices without fully understanding them, watering them down or misunderstanding due to language / culture barriers however that is a separate topic.
@@polishfolkwitch yes true. Such overlapping topics.
19:23 - 20:05
thank you for mentioning division & sub-cultures in the so-called community are not historically accurate.