I first learned about animism in the book The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. While the term animism was initially invented by anthropologists as a way of classifying place-based, indigenous religions the world over, it has taken on a much deeper and expansive meaning in recent years. In many ways it transcends the notion of religion or spirituality to more of an ecological ethos encoded in stories, to shape a person's perception of the environment in terms of reciprocity. For this reason, animism is a prevalent way of perceiving and engaging with the world in the rewilding movement. Through animism, we can once more find belonging to people and place, and align ourselves with the cycles and systems of the ecologies where we dwell.

Here to discuss the topic of animism with me today, is Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen. Rune is an historian of religion, Ph.d., educated from the Universities of Uppsala and Copenhagen. Rune has lived in many countries and done fieldwork in a number of contemporary (primarily Afro-descendant) religions, but since childhood he has had Nordic religion as a strong field of interest. Today Rune is working on applying contemporary developments in anthropology to rethink the way we address Nordic religion both in terms of scholarship, but also as a reservoir of cultural knowledge for environmental activism and sustainability sensitization. Rune Hjarnø's ongoing work on developing the Nordic Animism perspective can be supported through this Patreon profile.

Notes

Rune Rasmussen
https://nordicanimism.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Runehr
https://www.patreon.com/nordicanimism

Mentions

The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
An Animist Testament by Daniel Quinn
Animism by Graham Harvey
The Handbook of Contemporary Animism Edited by Graham Harvey
Perceptions of the Environment by Tim Ingold
Panpsychism, the philosophy of Animism - Interview with Prof. Arne Johan Vetlesen.
Saving the Indigenous Soul with Martin Prechtel
Terry Jones’ The Barbarians

The Primitive Celts https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72r71p
The Savage Goths https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x42a2ep
The Brainy Barbarians https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72r71r
The End of the World https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x42v7ip

Sand Talk by Tyson Yonkaporta
Maori Spiral
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall-Kimmerer

Cover Photo by https://unsplash.com/@michael957

Support the show

ep 205 - A magical walk and forage in the Swedish forest with Stedsans in the Woods