Animism (from the Latin anima - soul) is a belief in the existence of a soul and spirits, a belief that all nature is animate. According to the theory of the creator of this term, animism is the initial stage of all religions on the globe.
However, the theory of Edaurd Tylor, the scientist who coined the term "animism", did not stand up to criticism. The material accumulated by critics after Tylor's death suggests that the development of religion proceeded in a much more complex way than he imagined. So, animism is preceded by the era of magic and animatism (not just the animation of nature, but its revival). According to animism, a person consists of a physical and spiritual component. The spiritual component can leave the human body during sleep, when entering a trance, and also after his death. She can control the actions of other people, settling in them during holidays dedicated to the dead, or during special rituals, she can settle in any place of the surrounding nature - in trees, rocks, waterfalls. Quite often, there are ideas about what a person can have. be multiple souls. Each soul is responsible for the performance of a specific function by the body. One soul can be connected to bones, another - to be responsible for the respiratory organs, the third - for the intellect. The fate of such souls is different. One may remain in the body of the deceased, the other may go to another world, and the third may be reborn in some child. It is significant that in Yakutia it was believed that a man has eight souls, while a woman has only seven. In groups of people living in close contact with nature, the belief arose that not only people, but also animals and plants are endowed with a soul. In some tribes, it was believed that not all animals were endowed with a soul, but only a select few. Sometimes people developed a spiritual connection with some kind of animal. This area of animistic beliefs is called "totemism". For an animist, our world is simply teeming with a variety of spirits. Natural disasters - volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, whirlpools - these are real places where spirits gather. And a person needs to appease them so that they do not harm him and his loved ones.