01-18-2008, 12:00 AM
"The spirits of tribal animism are not energetic abstractions. They're components of the natural world, and they have to be worked with and around."
They can work with it. I don't see that they have to.
"When they say a tree has a spirit, they don't mean a Christian styled soul. Or like "the spirit within you" They mean there's a sprite that haunts the tree. They might leave it food. It might steal their soul."
I don't doubt the existence of such spirits. I have seen certain types and felt others. These are what Don Juan calls inorganic beings which covers a whole lot of territory and is just a general term.
"If there's a conjecture about prehistoric people here, maybe it's this; That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Prehistoric people may have and I have no doubt did worship nature spirits. They left offerings at springs and painted pictures in rocks and that went on through the ancient Celts and Greeks.
It is natural for man to appeal to gods of the wind, water and sea etc. If they had no other recource. Nature can seem capricious and changeable like the emotional nature of mankind.
"That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Someone did. John the Baptist lived alone in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey.
To be a monotheist does not mean you do not believe in the existence of gods, it just means you do not worship them.
It is a question of power.
"What is your source of power?",.. was a question my teacher used to ask of people claiming to be witches or magicians etc.
Most did not know what to say.
Why go to a lesser source of power when you can go right to The Source?Bob
They can work with it. I don't see that they have to.
"When they say a tree has a spirit, they don't mean a Christian styled soul. Or like "the spirit within you" They mean there's a sprite that haunts the tree. They might leave it food. It might steal their soul."
I don't doubt the existence of such spirits. I have seen certain types and felt others. These are what Don Juan calls inorganic beings which covers a whole lot of territory and is just a general term.
"If there's a conjecture about prehistoric people here, maybe it's this; That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Prehistoric people may have and I have no doubt did worship nature spirits. They left offerings at springs and painted pictures in rocks and that went on through the ancient Celts and Greeks.
It is natural for man to appeal to gods of the wind, water and sea etc. If they had no other recource. Nature can seem capricious and changeable like the emotional nature of mankind.
"That if it were possible to live from nature without animism and totemism, someone would have done it by now."
Someone did. John the Baptist lived alone in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey.
To be a monotheist does not mean you do not believe in the existence of gods, it just means you do not worship them.
It is a question of power.
"What is your source of power?",.. was a question my teacher used to ask of people claiming to be witches or magicians etc.
Most did not know what to say.
Why go to a lesser source of power when you can go right to The Source?Bob