{"id":510,"date":"2005-09-11T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-11T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2005-09-11T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-11T20:22:00","slug":"510","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=510","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Animism, Disney, and Morels<\/strong><\/p>\n

It started when someone<\/a> passed on a quote from an article in the August 2005 issue of Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> about Disneyland:<\/p>\n

I thought about everything it was and it wasn’t, the cornucopia of image, illusion, and icon, and realized, very much to my delight, that Disney is a freaking pagan cult, that this goody-two-shoes American institution is promoting a primitive, animist religion dedicated to investing everything with life, to animating everything from teacups to trees, from carpets to houses, from ducks to mice, with the pulse of human aspiration.<\/em><\/p>\n

Graham Harvey<\/a>, author of the newly published Animism: Respecting the Living World<\/em><\/a>, commented,<\/p>\n

Interesting that ‘animism’ is still defined as the projection of life onto inanimate objects. Wikipedia’s animism article<\/a> and the discussion pages also evidence the same debate–well, it does now that I’ve added some stuff about the ‘new animism’<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

I also thought of what Colorado writer David Petersen said in On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life<\/em>, published recently by Henry Holt<\/a>:<\/p>\n

These days, our annual morel quest has matured to the level of ceremony, complete as all hunting is for me, with rituals and taboos. This confession provides, I must hope, a passable transition into a brief explication of my own personal spirituality, which I call neo-animism . . . .In sum, here’s how it seems to me: if you depend on wild nature for your physical and mental well-being (as we all do, whether we know it or not); if you desire a sustainable, workable, and healthy human society and crave a sense of belonging, spiritual permanence, and personal worth; and if you agree with Aldo Leopold<\/a> that the collective human destiny is tied inextricably to the fate of the natural world, then you naturally become a homespun animist. (pp. 122-4).<\/em><\/p>\n

And speaking of morels, here is a new book available on hunting them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted to Nature Blog<\/a>. Animism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animism, Disney, and Morels It started when someone passed on a quote from an article in the August 2005 issue of Vanity Fair about Disneyland: I thought about everything it was and it wasn’t, the cornucopia of image, illusion, and icon, and realized, very much to my delight, that Disney is a freaking pagan cult, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-510","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3839,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3839","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":0},"title":"Graham Harvey on Animism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In this podcast, Graham Harvey of the Open University, one of the leading figures in Pagan studies, speaks about animism\u2014our relations with other-than-human communities. It is one of a series of podcasts featuring leading figures in different areas of religious studies.","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":690,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=690","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":1},"title":"Graham Harvey speaks on Animism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan scholar Graham Harvey is just back from convention-ing in Australia, where among other things he did this interview on animism on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. Listen online or download the 23-megabyte mp3 file. Capsule description:The oldest living religion, Animism, has a new advocate in pagan expert, Graham Harvey. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6133,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6133","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":2},"title":"Animism, Religion, Bloggers, and the AAR","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion is followed by what I think of as Hell Weekend. At least it is that if you chair or co-chair one of the many program units. Me, I am co-chair of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group, but I suspect that all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3409,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3409","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":3},"title":"The Day of the Dead is not Just for Humans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At Adventures in Animism, Heather Awen builds a shrine.","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5928,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5928","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":4},"title":"Blog Carnival of Animism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The August animist blog carnival had the there of Birds, and you can find it linked on Animist Jottings here. There is quite a bit there, so go visit.","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2278,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2278","url_meta":{"origin":510,"position":5},"title":"Around the Pagan Blogosphere","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Ways of leaving offerings for land wights, at Golden Trail. \u2022 Hermes versus the Internal Revenue Service (and a great poem) at The Alchemist's Garden. \u2022 \"Animist Human Diplomats\"\u00a0 at Adventures in Animism. Are you asking more than you are giving? \u2022 Still on the theme of place: Dealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}