Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life") is the worldview that non-human entities—such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects—possess a spiritual essence.
Animism is used in the anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of some indigenous tribal peoples, especially prior to the development of organized religion. Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, "animism" is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The Animistic perspective is so fundamental, mundane, everyday, and taken-for-granted that most animistic indigenous people do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"); the term is an anthropological construct.
Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinion has differed on whether animism refers to a broad religious belief or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late 19th century by Sir Edward Tylor, who created it as "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first".
In nature worship, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature such as water deity, vegetation deity, sky deity, solar deity, fire deity or any other naturally occurring phenomena such as death deity or fertility deity. Accepted in panentheism, pantheism, deism, polytheism, animism, totemism, shamanism and paganism the deity embodies natural forces and can have characteristics of the mother goddess, Mother Nature or lord of the animals.
African mythology
Arabian mythology
Aztec mythology
Baltic mythology
Celtic mythology
Mark Anderson may refer to:
Rear Admiral Mark Anderson CB is a former Royal Navy officer who served as Commander Operations and Rear Admiral, Submarines.
Naval career
Educated at the University of Manchester, Anderson joined the Royal Navy in 1974 and was appointed commanding officer of the submarine HMS Talent in 1993. He became Military Assistant to the Chief of Defence Logistics in May 2000, Commanding Officer of the frigate HMS Marlborough as well as Captain of the 4th Frigate Squadron in August 2002 and Director Equipment Capability (Underwater Effects) in March 2003 before moving on to become the Chief of the Defence Staff's Liaison Officer to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in July 2007 and Commander Operations and Rear Admiral, Submarines in January 2009. He retired from the Royal Navy in March 2011.
In retirement he became Strategy Director of Sonar & Undersea Systems and then Group Marketing Director at Ultra Electronics.
References
Mark Anderson (born 16 November 1991) is a male Belizean sprinter. He competed in the Men's 100 metres event at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics in Beijing, China.