Jackie Trono - Animism

As Wikipedia defines it,

“animism is a belief system that does not accept the separation of body and soul, of spirit from matter. As such it is based upon the belief that personalized souls are found in animals, plants, and other material objects, governing, to some degree, their existence. It also assumes that this unification of matter and spirit plays a role in daily life” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism).

I have chosen to write about animism because it is a view I have come to respect, one that I also used to reject. Growing up philosophically, I had encapsulated the world into a materialist framework, repudiating all things ethereal or spiritual. I believed the world to be no more than what exists in the physical realm. Accordingly, I was also a nihilist, believing the world to be utterly meaningless. I was so focused on the meaning behind Sartre’s comment that

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance” (Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea 180).

My thoughts centered on all the misery abound on the Earth, the suffering and tragedy. I had no concern for anyone or anything besides myself. Now, as a result of a personal telepathic experience, an experience that shook the footholds of my materialist views and made it impossible for me to continue believing such exclusionary nonsense, I no longer hold such a depressing worldview. The shocking thing about the telepathic experience was that it happened to me in spite of the fact that I did not believe such a thing was possible. I realize that citing telepathy as the source of my paradigm shift makes me sound sort of cuckoo, but I can’t change the fact that it occurred that way.

Whatever the cause for the change, all I can say is that I am so much happier for it. I feel fuller and I have greater warmth for other people and earthly life in general. The shift has caused me to care about things that I used to think were just more symbols of a dying planet. That destruction of which I speak is clearly the fault of humanity, and I hope that I can help others in eradicating the pessimistic, close-minded, and inaccurate materialist ideology that pervades intellectual society and is at the heart of such irresponsible behavior.