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Animism, Empathy and Human Development

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Animism, Empathy and Human Development Animism,1 Empathy and Human Development Michael W. Fox The Humane Society of the United States That people do feel pain when the earth is damaged is aJrlfffied by a Wmtu Indian woman ofCalifornia who said. "We don't chop down trees. We only use dead wood. But the white people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. The tree says, 'Don't. I am sore. Don'thurt me.' ... They blast rocks and scatter them on the ground. The rock says, 'Don't. You are hurting me."'2 Such empathy leads to a feeling of kinship with all life. Lakota ChiefLuther Standing Bear wrote: "Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water, was a real Surely it is time for us all to make every effort to evolve and active principle. For the animal and bird world there as a species and become more fully human. To be fully existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe human is to be humane. To be sub-human is to be among them and so close did some ofthe Lakotas come inhumane. In order to evolve in this way and become to their feathered and furred friends that in true more fully human we must defme and refine our ethical brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.,,3 Chief and spiritual responsibilities and sensibilities. And we Luther also asserted that lack of respect for growing, must redefine what it means to be human. The origin of living things soon led to lack ofrespect for humans also. the word human is rooted in such terms as humus, Australian aboriginal elder Bill Neidjie in the book humility and humane. Then we may evolve socially and Kakadu Man (Angus and Robertson NSW Australia biologically, as our behavior, appetites, needs, values 1986) puts it this way: and relationships change. Ifeel it with my body, with by blood. Feeling Feeling for Others: Panempathy all these trees, all this country. When the wind blow you can feel it. Same for country... You The word religion, like the word yoga, means to become feel it. You can look, but feeling ...that make spiritually reconnected. But by what means do we you. Feeling make you, out there in open establish this connection? And to what exactly do we space. He coming through your body. Look become connected? Our inherent divinity is not actualized or released until we become truly religious, developing the yoga of body-mind integration and harmonic resonance with the inherent divinity in all sentient beings. The powers and potentialities of becoming a fully human, panempathetic being, are RELIGION realized once we begin to reconnect with the sacred, numinous dimension of reality. Between the Species 130 Summer & Fall 1995 Animism, Empathy and Human Development while he blow and feel with your body... themselves to be intimate with the woods let the trees Because tree just about your brother and become their teachers and healers. father and tree is watching you... lfyoufeel sore headache, sore body, that mean some­ The ''Powers't of Animals and Nature body killing tree or grass. You feel because your body in that tree or earth. Nobody can Certainly without the ability to empathize, our ancestors tell you. You got to feel it yourself. would have learned very little about the ways and "powers" of animals. The success of gatherer and What and how we feel about trees, grass and all the hunter, and later agricultural communities would have living and pre-living elements and components of our depended as much on objective, instrumental know­ life community affects our perception and behavior and ledge as on empathic resonance with and understanding is greatly influenced by our beliefs and spirituality. Bill of animals, plants and ecosystems. Neidjie is a believing animist who lives and breathes in Indeed, much ecosystem and animal knowledge was a way of feeling and sensing, and therefore oflrnowing incorporated into the laws, rituals, taboos and religion and understanding, that is alien to most western of earlier peoples. Many of their ills-collective and "civilized" minds. He sees through feral eyes. To see in individual, were (and still are) often correctly diagnosed this way, the late Sioux medicine man Fools Crow told and treated because an ecological or environmental me, is to see in a sacred way. element was identified and corrected: like killing too Philosopher Martin Buber is one European with such many deer, felling too many trees; having too many vision. In his book I - Thou he writes that, "It can also cattle and offspring. We and our domesticated animals happen if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate developed new diseases, and the surviving wildlife also, the tree I am drawn into a relation and the tree ceases to when we dammed rivers and made swamps, developed be an It. .. What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree unnatural monocultures (biologically and conceptually) nor a dryad, but the tree itself." Or as the Buddhists and when we depleted the soils of their life and nutrient say, "The thing in itself." value to what we grew and ate. The "otherness" of an animal Buber describes Animism facilitates an empathic rather than an eloquently in Between Man and Man when he strokes objective mechanistic and reductionistic approach to a horse at his grandparents' estate..."I must say that human health and prosperity. And it leads to empathic what I experienced in touch with the animal was the knowledge, the vital complement, catalyst and Other, which, however, did not remain strange like the corrective for our scientific, objective lrnowledge base. otherness of the ox and the ram, but rather let me draw We have, regrettably, developed significantly in the near and touch it. ..and yet it let me approach, confided latter realm socially, economically and technologically. itself to me, placed itself elementally in the relation of Satellite systems and computer nets, along with our Thou and Thou with me." In my book The Soul ofthe prowess at manipulating the atoms of matter and the Wolf, I described this as communion with a significant genesoflife ro serve the illimitable wants ofindustrialism responsive Other, the wolf being 'the otherness of I.' and consumerism, become an assault on the biosphere This is the essence of communion. and on humanity when there is no ethical temperance Our spiritual autism has now become so severe, and reverential respect for life. Enlightened animism and our egotism and anthropocentrism so alienating constrains us, along with empathic lrnowledge, from from the rest of the Earth's life community that we commoditizing life and from becoming a global parasite. wantonly destroy whole forests, watersheds, and What do the materialists and instrumental rationalists wildlife habitats and unique plant and animal species who applaudour splitting ofatoms and splicing ofgenes without any feeling or sense except to make paper for think animists might feel, empathetically about nuclear computers and raise cattle for hamburgers. Such trivial fission and transgeneic animals and plants? ends to millions of years of biological evolution that We derive "power" from ourtoterns, like the PuebloInIian is being irreplaceably obliterated, along with the saying, "My help is in the mountain that I take away with peoples who for generations maintained a more me." This spiritual power or psychic energy can be drawn sustainable, if not also a gentler way of life, must be upon in times ofneed. Animals andplants, thunderbolts stopped. There is no future in it. Those who allow and mountains, serve various symbolic functions today Summer & Fall 1995 131 Between the Species Animism, Empathy and Human Development on coats ofarms, national, regional andmilitlryflags, logos, My help is in the mountain stamps, emblems, ere. 1beirtotemic use therefore continues Where I take myself to heal in modem society while their powers and animistic The earthly wounds significance have been variously forgotten, forbidden, or That people give to me. debased. It is no coincidence, for example, that the lion, once I find a rock with sun on it apure totemic symbol ofpower, was coopted as a symbol of And a stream where the water runs gentle power by the British monarchy, among other rulers, and by And the trees which one by one give me company. various manufacturers and product advertisers from So must I stay for a long time motorbikes to tea and syrup! Until I have grown from the rock I recently asked a Tanzanian tribal elder and wildlife And the stream is running through me ecologist Prof. Deo-Gratias Gamassa what is the deepest And I cannot tell myself from one tall tree. significance of animals, like the lion and elephant, to Then I know that nothing touches me Africans. His immediate response was, "Power." Nor makes me run away. This generic "power" has many dimensions, from My help is in the mountain using various animal parts for healing and divination That I take away with me. to rites of initiation, ceremonial purposes, and calling Earth cure me. Earth receive my woe. up the spirit of the totem animal in order to gain psychic Rock strengthen me. Rock receive my weakness. energy from its particular attributes. Afeather, tooth or Rain wash my sadness away. Rain receive my doubt. bone can therefore embody to the animist, much more Sun make sweet my song. Sun receive the anger than the "realist" or materialist can ever sense or from my heart.4 appreciate. That an eagle's feather, ivory amulet, or wolf-bone flute would be worth far more than money Animism plays an important role in healing, as when can buy and more than a perfect diamond or gold nugget our soul (or higher Self) and personalities are not to the animist, attests to the very different realities and integrated, and when our relationships with others, value systems that people live by.
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