A recent discussion on the Druid Network lead me to ask the question: Do you see animism as implying that that which is animated is so by virtue of an animating force, a spirit or a soul. Or do you, like me, understand being alive as a property of relationship within a set of systems within systems, where life is a given manifestation of the behaviour of the totality of all that is? Or do you see it is something else entirely.
A blog post by Lance Foster at The Sleeping Giant also had me asking similar things of myself. I have used terms like soul and spirit… enspirited… to describe the being alive that I mean when I refer to animism, but the words are not adequate unless used maybe as poetic metaphor.
I realise that I *fully* identify being alive with *relationship*. And as no thing can not NOT be in relationship, so all things are alive.
What we are changes. Day by day, minute by minute, second by every miniscule fraction of a second. We metamorphise constantly, both by virtue of constant change in relationship both internally and externally and by virtue of agreement… consensus within some of those relationships as to what constitutes an entity and thus, a person.
A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One.
Georg Cantor, quoted in “Infinity and the Mind” by Rudy Rucker.
And each of the elements of a set of elements is also interacting with and in relationship to all other elements, at every level of existence. The interaction is the living itself… is consciousness itself… and we descend into Indra’s net.
I like to discourage from the old common definition of animism as believing everything has a spirit or soul. This is part of what Harvey identifies as the “Old Animism”. However, its an easy definition to fall back on – if you consider spirit in an etymological sense being connected with breath – the metaphor (as you say) works where as the etymological root of animism is also connected to breath. The problem is the idea of Soul and Spirit has been largely co-opted by Colonial Monotheism (to distinguish from animist monotheism) to mean something different from what the animist means when that word is used. In a way thinking of the spirit of a tree, rock, river, etc . . . does a disservice to the Person that is the tree, rock, river, etc . . . To me, the spirit or soul is indistinguishable from personhood, but when I speak about animism to a non-animist audience.
“What we are changes. Day by day, minute by minute, second by every miniscule fraction of a second. We metamorphise constantly, both by virtue of constant change in relationship both internally and externally and by virtue of agreement… consensus within some of those relationships as to what constitutes an entity and thus, a person. . . And each of the elements of a set of elements is also interacting with and in relationship to all other elements, at every level of existence. The interaction is the living itself… is consciousness itself… and we descend into Indra’s net.”
This is so elegently stated – can I quote you on this?
Of course
Let’s call it GNU animism 
(Sorry folks… geek joke)
While I certainly respect the new animism, as it is much more compatible with the postmodern view of contemporary society and indeed with the systems theory of science, I was myself brought up as an old animist, and old animism is much closer to my own experiences. I dig my new animist brothers and sisters not wishing to feel false in unlearning something they don’t resonate with or feel primitive or infantile —
–BUT I myself remain, and will always remain, an old animist 
And Bravo!!
I wouldn’t say that animism old school feels in anyway primitive to me. I simply do not get the concept of a soul or spirit in any meaningful (other than metaphorical) sense… I don’t think *I* have one, let alone anyone else… what I am is alive and partaking of consciousness. But I totally dig the idea that some one else gets it differently and that being brought up with a worldview that is consistent with one’s deeper intuitions is very different than trying to create one that is consistent with one’s deeper intuitions.
This concept is one in which you and I have different understandings. My own “intuitive” conceptualization is probably based upon the idea’s of some modern neo-shamans, Ingerman, Jane Shutt, et al, but in all truth, Adam, I strongly suspect it is a concept which is totally individualist by the methods of our own biological processes.
RR
At the end of the day, these are all simply ways of making sense of the whirled around us
A mug is still what it is, whether I wear it or drink from it… all that changes how I choose to relate to it. So different understandings are all good, because our understanding of the world is simply one of personal plausibility rather than certainty.