History of AnimismIt is unknown when exactly animism first started. However, it’s been seen in many ancient tribes such as the Guiana Indians. The oldest academic writing in which the term "animism" is used is in a book written in 1871 titled Primitive Culture, by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor. He defined the term animism as the belief in any “supernatural, mystical, or non-empirical beings”. In 1919, George William Gilmore published a book titled Animism: Or, Thought Currents of Primitive Peoples. In his book, Gilmore explores the many different aspects of animism, including animism in the ancient world. He also included an excerpt from The Japan Weekly of an article written on March 16, 1916 describing the events that took place in which people in Japan were giving a snake a spirit. In 2005, Graham Harvey wrote a book titled Animism: Respecting the Living World. In his book, he describes animists as “people who recognise that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others”. He also describes animism as believing that “Persons are beings, rather than objects, who are animated and social towards others (even if they are not always sociable)”. In more recent years, there have been Christians attempting to get animists to be Christians. Technically, if we just looked at Tylor's definition of animism, Christians could be somewhat considered animists. They believe in "God", and according to Tylor, animism is "the belief in any supernatural, mystical, and non-empirical beings". But even though we do not know much about animism, or when exactly it began, animism has been brought up promptly throughout history, in writings by philosophers and also seen directly from tribes. Today, animism is still practiced in tribes in Africa, the Middle East, and South-Eastern Asia.
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