Working on explaining animism

Regenerative Culture Spiritual Technology
#9

Bejan, as a refugee from a communist dictatorship, has a special affection for capitalism and civilization. This I believe clouds his perception and so I tend to pass over his thoughts about these things. However the animistic idea that we exist in a living universe, and that the sustainability of flow systems speaks to the processes of life and death, are much older than him. To traditional peoples every drop of water and grain of sand is alive. The flow of their journey through time is the journey of their life. Indeed, Death is a person for traditional cultures and considered alive too. This is why I find constructal law so rich, it is a set of traditional understandings rendered in the language of science.

When a river dries up, it fossilizes and dies. When civilization loses the flows that drive it - modern food crops, petroleum, myths that no longer have meaning, etc - it too will fossilize and die.

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#10

Thanks, Willem, for that bit of background information. I’ll look into that a bit more myself, too, and try keep that in mind as I continue reading.

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#11

I love the flow of the conversation so far :slight_smile:

I think I agree with Willem in terms of how there can be temporary life (like the flow from a hose) and I do believe death has a flow (have I ever discussed the Black River here? Probably not… hm)

But (other than loving the quote “stroking against the hairs”) what popped into my head when reading your response Anneke is how much of our response to different modes of being comes from us being unused to ‘Honorable Others’? In this case, modes of being that are antithetical to our own. I know I fall into this way too much, so I miss opportunities to contemplate things which are truly alien to me.

What do you think? (or am I barking up the wrong tree?)

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#12

Yes, that’s exactly why I like to discuss these things here while reading (still haven’t finished the book yet). It helps me “massage” my own (and perhaps others’) viewpoints and overcome moments of getting stuck or misunderstanding.
So far, I find that in many cases there is not so much difference in perception but rather in who means what with each word. And, in doing so, it helps clear one’s own thought pattern too. Thanks!

#13

Thanks for questioning my wording and awaiting my thoughts so patiently!

After reading “Design In Nature” and pondering the wonderful comments/input above for a long time, I have come to understand that although I can try and learn to speak Adrian Bejan’s language, there remain differences in wording and understanding between his language and mine, and that his writing hasn’t impacted me enough to give up mine so far.

For example, I have pondered the living aspect of Death, and I can totally see that and appreciate the live quality thereof. At the same time, I continue to feel that for me the “live” aspect only makes sense in relation to a pattern of recurrence.

As I described before, to me a river that dries up every year is very much alive even at the times that “death” seems to take all the individual plants, fish and other lives it brought forth or sustained.
It also means that for me pouring out a bucket of water on a sandy ramp to me doesn’t mean it brings life, even though it causes flow patterns to appear in the sandy surface.

In other words, To me the flow patterns described by Adrian Bejan have a very different quality than “alive” - but I haven’t figured out yet how I might want to call it instead. My first thoughts go in the direction of “Law of Change Propagation”…
So, all in all, I guess that my view asserts that apart from the qualifications “alive” and “dead” there could be (at least) one other state - “existence”.

#14

I have two misgivings when it comes to animism. Perhaps this has already been addressed here. I find myself having a hard time following everything that is being written.

First: take a worm. Cut it in half. You now have 2 worms. Do they have 2 new spirits or does one keep the old spirit and a new one is born? I doubt anyone knows the precise answer to this question. How could they? It is, however, something that bothers me.

I suppose the first issue could apply to all sorts of things. Rocks being crushed into gravel. Silica being fused into glass. All the complex or simple processes that exist in the world as it changes and changes again on a daily basis. Do spirits fluctuate in droves all over?

Second: take a human being physically tortured to death who does not choose to be tortured. Does the body retain the soul or is the soul kicked out of the body and replaced with a simulation that screams and writhes like a puppet? There is, I think, a line as to how far we are willing to experience reality and how far the all-loving all-knowing extremely-powerful universe will allow our experiences to go.

#15

It’s quite a bit of fun to have read through your response a few times before an answer came into my head. Could the difference you are describing be “persistence”?

#16

I’m glad you asked the two questions @grandiose. I think this is where English becomes really odd. It’s my understanding (mistaken or not) that English evolved as a trading language, which means it works very well to assign a value to a discrete thing compared to another discrete thing. Whether this discrete nature is an accurate representation of the actual thing in question is immaterial. It’s the perceived value that can be traded.

So where does that enter in to this discussion? Well, we’re discussing ‘spirit’. Spirit, in English, is perceived as a discrete object that may or may not exist within the body and may or may not be connected to other energies in the universe.

The alternative, of course, is to perceive spirit as a descriptor of the processes (both internal and external) that make up you. That means, when you typed this comment, you were humaning. You were grandioseinterlopering. But now, for all I know, you might be wolfing, or oaking or any number of processes distinct from what folks in modern civilization would call “you”.

A better and simpler visual. What you call “spirit” is an eddy in the stream that is existence. It circles and circles for a finite amount of time before returning to the greater current.

So let’s take question 1: 2 worms. Let’s call him Eddy. Cut him in half, get 2 worms. They are both Eddy 2, and as time progresses, they will diverge even farther from what we used to call Eddy. To be proper, 2 spirits have been ‘born’, if you wish to picture it that way, with imprints reminiscent of their previous existence.

Some of what you’re referring to – rock into gravel for example – I describe to my kids as old age. Rocks, as they age, get smaller, lose cohesion. Silica fused into, more likely a death and then birth into something new.

I believe it’s best to describe spirits as repetitive patterns, which is why we can say sometimes a rock is a rock (i.e. no connection to us) and sometimes a rock is our oldest ancestor (we’ve gifted it with a fire lodge, asking that it returns the blessing to us in a sweat lodge). This puts animism squarely in the realm of observation and analysis, allowing us to grow and expand in our understanding of the world around us.

Question 2: So torture is the second point although great pain will do as well. I suppose it should creep me out that I actually have an answer. I’ve had some major conversations with a man who a long time ago was a “military interrogator”. That’s a euphemism for someone who occasionally uses torture. Part of his assignment was to take people from other units and try to break them. This was basically to prepare them in case they got caught by the enemy.

Anyway, he told me a story about the only person he -couldn’t- break (he was -very- good at his job) and that was an Inuit fellow. This person was so centered, so at peace with what he’d done with his life, pain wasn’t an issue. Yeah, it hurt, but it couldn’t psychologically break him. It couldn’t spiritually break him. All that was left was death.

There was a similar lesson taught at the sweat lodge I attend. The set up is that there are things that happen in this world that are negative for some but positive for others. For example, the lion gets to feed but the antelope dies in agony. Or the deer gets away but the cougar goes hungry. Negative things will happen in your life but you are -never- meant to carry them for long. That’s why this world is sprinkled with all sorts of medicines to help people.

One of these medicines is death.

So that’s my answer. You don’t get a simulation but you can make your mind and spirit healthy enough to resist any pain. And if agony is too great, death is there, the final balm for those too wearied or too pained to continue.

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#17

Thanks Thomas Maxwell. I understand where people are coming from better now. Animism and spirit remain mysterious to me. I do not think I will go through much difficulty over that. A lot of things are mysterious to me. :smile:

#18

Honestly, it’s one of the things that appeals to me about animism. To be able to understand and convey the basics, but also to see that to figure out the details, even in one small area, could take generations! :grin:

#19

Hi Bill, Thanks for joining my search for a good word… The word I searched for should describe the process of the one-time flow of energy (e.g. the water pouring from a bucket and shaping a river pattern in the sandy slope, or a battery releasing its energy). Your suggestion ‘persistence’ to me seems to describe another aspect in my post… but it certainly helped my formulate my thoughts further. :slight_smile:

As I sit here writing, a whole different line of thought develops: the river that keeps flowing (or comes back every year) may not come back after all. So that indeed makes it hard to differentiate between ‘alive’ and ‘other’ flow patterns. On the other hand, if it does come back every so often, other life forms will start to depend on it, like (migrating) birds, plants, salmon, and so on. They can, because the river’s presence has become predictable (namely: recurring with a fairly certain interval) and hence they feel the river has become trustworthy. The flow of the bucket water has yet to become dependable…

So perhaps the difference does not lie so much in ‘aliveness’, but in ‘trustworthiness’. No wonder that people feel estranged from nature… if they don’t have a trustworthy way of life everyone else will move away from them if they can…

Our sensory system serves to tell us whether something supports (feeds/helps) us or not, and also whether it does so in a dependable way.

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#20

I absolutely -love- the term trustworthy! I think it brings back into focus that life exists in relationship to other connections. Thank you so much for that insight!

#21

OK, now, lying in bed, I finally saw how this connects to something I have sensed all my life but never could explain… so here I sit at the computer at 4 am to try and put it all into words…

Death of the Scientific Paradigm?

If the sensory system of a living entity serves to tell it whether elements in its surroundings support (feed/help) it or not, and also whether that these element do so in a dependable way, then that means that the living entity itself must embody some regularly recurring process in and of itself.

This cyclical process inside an entity make up its “awareness”; its connection to sensory systems that gauge what goes on outside the entity give it “feelings”. The sensory systems itself must on the other hand have a branched structure in order not to have any interference in the connection between the “aware” and the outside world. Sensory systems with cyclical structures “only” transmit interpretations.

The presence of this cyclical process makes the entity “alive”. Death occurs when for some reason the cyclical process terminates. (Note that in “composite” entities (called “organisms”), sometimes smaller parts can die off while the greater organism continues to live on.)

The absence of this cyclical process makes the entity “dead” (by definition). Note that the death of an organism does not imply that all of its components have died already, too! Nor that the greater organism to which it belongs has died or must die as well.
At the same time, the absence of the cyclical process makes an entity “insensitive”, because any structures that might pass information cannot pass this information to any “awareness”.

–

Following this line of thought, let’s now consider our relationship with the scientific paradigm. This approach of the world uses a set of hypotheses and takes off from there, no circular reasoning allowed!
Considering the scientific paradigm as a separate entity and knowing that it doesn’t contain any circuits, surely we should call it a “dead” structure!?

But wait, didn’t we see earlier that living entities (such as people) use their senses to determine the trustworthiness of other entities, and that living entities do not consider dead entities trustworthy?
In other words, logical reasoning (a tree structure) by a living entity (me) tells that me that I cannot depend on the scientific paradigm in the long run!

So we see: the scientific paradigm’s hypothesis that it makes a trustworthy study of our surroundings without allowing circular reasoning or subjectivity cannot hold true according to logical reasoning!

I see two remedies (to regain my health):
a) Either the scientific paradigm needs to change and allow circular reasoning – which will make it “alive” and “sensitive”. Instead of a linear world view, it then becomes a world view based on (and depending on) cyclical patterns!
This will allow us to continue to see the paradigm as a trustworthy entity that lives independently of us.
or
b) We acknowledge the scientific paradigm’s untrustworthiness and recognize that it only serves as one of multiple sensory structures to probe the world around us.
This then implies that there no longer exists a single objective scientific truth that holds for all people – instead, the scientific method requires subjectivity in its perception of the world around us.

#22

For me it is sometimes more helpful to avoid what Nietzsche called “true world theories,” and for me that includes using any words to describe phenomena that have a homogenizing effect, including ideas such as “everything is motion”, “everything is energy”, “everything is love” “everything is flow,” or “everything is will.” In this vein, even the definition “everything is alive” sometimes has a way of pushing me into a mechanistic, determinate mindset.

I think these ways of speaking shift me towards a “view from nowhere” with the perspective that nature is a determinate and predictable set of patterns, rather than the open-ended, participatory, and very uncontrollable world that I experience.

If I had to choose an “everything is” definition that decribes my experience of animism, it would be more like “everything is different” Not that there aren’t temporary patterns and groupings that we can vaguely familiarize ourselves with and roughly try to predict… but that at the root of everything is characteristic differentiation. That every being, no matter how large or small, from the smallest observable particle to the largest and most complex beings (which seem to be comprised of a temporary organizations of smaller beings) all have a uniqueness that can only be found in them, in their presentation to me, at this present moment.

I have often found myself in the pitfall of progressivism, another “true world” theory that imagines the present as a mere point on the way to a destination, rather than the only thing that is really here.

David Abrams makes what I find as a helpful distinction between experiences that are “made” (things that are shaped by humans) and experiences that are “born” (things that emerge from outside of the human sets of controls and symbols and language). Animism to me means to escape the human-created hall of mirrors and try to experience through the senses the wildness and differentiation that seems to exist in unmediated experience.

It’s seems so easy to snap back into the human hall of mirrors that I do need certain “tricks” or maxims to get me back in touch with my senses. So far, I rely mostly on avoiding certain patterns of thought such as the ones I mentioned above. I’m working through david abram’s "becoming animal, and find some of his ideas reconnect me while others don’t. Thinking in terms of what animism “is not” seems to clear things up for me better than conceptualizing what animism “is”, but I’m open to suggestions. Some part of me thinks I’d be better off avoiding reading and avoiding conceptualization altogether, except for maybe maintaining the conceptual distinction between the wild-born and the human-produced. As an animist, I value the emancipation of the born from its human-shaped bondage because I respect the otherness of wild nature as infinitely and inexhaustibly more interesting and primordial
than what humans are alone able to create.

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#23

I see myself as something of a simple mind in this sea of deep and incisive thinking. Perhaps that is a good thing? Unseasoned is a good place to begin. I am drastically under-experienced in the arena of intellectual discussion, and maybe even if I was to encounter a good deal of it I would not have much to contribute. But I have thoughts that bubble up from time to time… and I on occasion want to share them. So this, simple as it might be, is my thought on the EVERYTHING IS line of thinking.

Everything might be a shard of the same original substance, the fullness of creation might be rooted in all facets of even the smallest example of creation. I do not claim to know. But what I do see is that EVERYTHING DESERVES -respect-.

We were created free. We have the ability to decide how we want to live. I think everyone on this world, with very few exceptions, want to live good lives. Some simply do not know how to yet. There will be moments of awakening and revelation that leads them down the path to goodness. But that everyone wants to be good is not a good enough reason to respect them. The fact that there is a story behind every person that can be understood and that there is nothing inherently wrong with that persons freedom to choose to be however they choose to be is the reason they deserve respect. In my way of thinking, that God made it possible makes it respectable.

But how does respect manifest? A man is doing something unspeakable to your loved one. You know it is evil. You know the man wants to be good. At the time the man wants to do the evil thing, but in the bigger picture the man does not. Respectfully you stop the evil deed as you know that it is not as the person really wants down in their unseen and as of yet unexhibited core.

Maybe that is not correct. I respect what some people are without finding I like what they do as I scan my reservoir of preferences. I can say ‘I respect your wishes and who you are for I have a profound understanding of your story, but my wishes are going to supersede yours in this instance.’ and the respect does not die. I am all about respect. I think philosophies like ‘respect is earned’ and ‘the strong survive’ are silly. If animism taught me anything it was to find a way to care about and foster respect for whatever I come in contact with. I continue to believe that someone being tortured to death has no soul in this world. I think the Valkyries swoop down and deliver the suffering hero to Valhalla. Or something like that.:slight_smile:

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#24

ThomasMaxwell, I am sorry I wasn’t looking at this thread earlier, it is a worthy topic. In response to your first post in it, I would say that is a small step in the direction that vegans take. I wasn’t ready for that years before, I had my religious beliefs to interfere with really considering it, but with once finally seeing facts for it, I couldn’t dismiss it anymore. Vegans see the value in others with animate life. With it being just so much healthier to have what is plant-based for food, with variety and without any processed foods, there is no good reason to remain a consumer of what is derived from many animals, even billions every year, for humanity, with horrible lives they are subjected to and abuse up to their slaughter, when it uses much more resources, land and water, and has a great impact on more emitted gas contributing to the climate change that involves the warming process. It is relevant to rewilding when a sustainable way of living is to be sought, and the value of other life around us can really be respected. If some say plants are to be respected, using just plants will have plants being used up much less than if plants are also being used up to maintain all those animals that we will then use, for the nutrients that are then derived in a very inefficient way second-hand.

It would be nice if suffering ones have their soul taken to never experience the suffering that is inflicted, but I expect that this is too optimistic, and has a danger that with really thinking this we will neglect to release any that we can from suffering when we can, and they will in fact suffer, as they visibly show they are, and sometimes it is all their life, even in cases when it is shortened.

#25

Then how could the Son of that monotheist God say: “And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”? Monotheism isn’t as deficient as you may like to think, or as you’ve been told it is. God, the Creator, created all things and, all things have a spirit (an angel) from Him, the Holy Spirit, the Highest Spirit, the Father of all spirits. This is not a Church-spouted doctrine. This is from knowledge of Him–knowledge anyone can have, if one quits the self-deification and gives oneself to Him. This may be the effect of the sweat lodge–one giving oneself to the Creator. You see, this is why the Natives of “America” readily embraced the honest news of Jesus, until that news was distorted beyond recognition by becoming fraudulently co-opted by Godless conquistadors for their unholy intentions.

#26

It would be the capacity of God, being the Creator of all that is here, to give awareness to anything, and even enable stones to cry out, and it could be there were superstones that were able to communicate. But animals are around that we can see, if we observe with honesty to ourselves, that are responsive with feeling things, and seek some things and avoid or flee other things, and among many animals there is a range of emotions with visible expression which we can really relate to, and even expressions of loving and caring. These we can always respect, more than we even do, and it is not better, in any way, to use them yet where it is counter to such respect. There are much better ways for pursuit other than that, for many reasons.

#27

Hi Brian–

Many things in your post resonate clearly with me, but the above quote is what hit me hardest in connection with my practice at this time. For the past month or so I have been constantly reminding myself to pay attention to what my senses are perceiving, but my own “hall of mirrors” is quite well-maintained from many years of constant attention to it, and my practice is facing a very tough challenge from the gauntlet of distorting abstractions that I must pass through at every attempt.

Nevertheless I can already see that this is by far the best thing I’ve ever tried toward fulfilling my intense desire to be in the real world, so that my everyday decisions and actions will be coming from that place. I no longer believe that I must settle for the clunky guesswork which is the cheap substitute for real knowing that is used within the civilization. I have come to believe that connecting with the larger intelligence of the earth, by really experiencing being an actual physical part of it, is the only way that true remedies for the Big Mistake called civilization can be found. Attempts to find solutions from within the civilized mindset only seem to lead to more vicious circles.

I realize that your post was from eleven months ago, but in case you see this, I would very much like to hear about your further experiences. (Or if anybody else is struggling with this kind of thing I would really appreciate your input.)

#28

Hi Eileen

I’m glad my post resonated with you… your description of your struggle resonates with me as well.

In the year since that post I have spent the majority of the time in civilization-influenced mindsets. A lot of it had to do with it being a particularly busy year for me, so keeping the wild-oriented mindset was difficult, and at many times, impossible.

With things settling down again, I’ve been trying to figure out how to reconcile the demands of my current situation with my intuitions about what would be a life best lived. I particularly struggle with conflict between enjoying the privilege of my own moment, with how much time and effort I should devote to preserving the wild for others. I wonder if such a neutral stance towards “nature at this moment” makes me complicit in its imminent and ongoing destruction… and yet when I begin to think in terms of scale of the problems from civ, it’s easy to get discouraged and pessimistic that any effort from me would be more than a drop in the ocean.

I’ve been thinking lately that I need more strategies or techniques to employ in order to switch between the mindset of feeling connected to the wild and the mindset of taking care of practical business within Civilzation. Perhaps this has been covered elsewhere on this site, and I know that many techniques of rewilding itself are covered, but what I struggle with is that as much as I can “believe” in rewilding (and that belief working within me as a sort of practice in itself), perhaps as humans in literate culture we need some proven conceptual tools, practices and actions to counteract the daily influx of purely social/practical thinking.

David Abram suggested a few meditative ideas in his books, but most of his writing consists of anecdotes and verbal perspective realignment… Even he describes the trouble he has feeling connected with the wild in certain circumstances. I’m left trying to come up with some actionable techniques. Obviously there are no shortage of “hard” rewilding ideas on this site and elsewhere, I guess what I’m trying to come up with is a more meditative and regular “spiritual” practice that doesn’t take me too radically far from my family and responsibilities.

So far my ideas are: outdoor meditation, and ritualistic visits to areas near me that make me feel particularly connected to the wild. What I’m wondering is if there are some more specific guided meditation techniques that would peel back the layers of civilized thought better than others. The philosopher Husserl promised something like this from his “phenomenological reductions,” and I’m in the process of investigating to see if there’s anything in his stuff that works for me…

If anyone has any other ideas along these lines, or if it’s already here on the site I’d like to know. I’ll be searching the site myself pretty soon here, and I’m sure in the end I’ll just have to accumulate and tailor a bunch of techniques and practices that work for me.

Anyways thanks Eileen for asking a follow up, I’d like to hear some more thoughts on this as well.