Agrarian Animism
Caring for the Spirits of Place
Animism as a concept is central to both the theory and the practice of agrarian Paganism. Before we get too far along we should probably define that word so we’re all on the same page. Older sources define animism as a belief in many things having a “spirit” or a “soul”, however those concepts may be defined (we will get into that later). Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey says that “Animists are people who recognize the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others.” (Harvey, Animism, Respecting the Living World, xi.)Thus our world, far from being a collection of distinct objects from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, listed in decreasing order of sentience and aliveness, is a collection of communities of neighbors of all kinds, mountain persons, tree persons, river persons, plant persons, spirit persons, down to the obviously animate four footed, two footed, and winged persons. To live in relation to the land and to place is to live in relation to one's neighbors and relatives of many kinds, on several scales of being. Animism is an attitude common to most cultures that live close to the land. It seems to have been an attitude that may have been the ancestor of all later religions. It is rooted in the idea that a primal life force flows through all things and a common consciousness enlivens the natural world from the farthest star to the stones beneath our feet, each participating in it according to its nature.
All of this talk of the world as a community of persons begs the question: What is a person? Briefly, a person is a subject with interiority, a being with whom one enters into relationship, someone that experiences and acts, rather than something inert which is merely acted upon. With this as our starting for working within nature, as a community of beings rather than an assembly of things, of which we are but one, we begin our journey on equal footing with all living things, both incarnate and discarnate, than we encounter in the context of our working and living on the land.
The term animism was first popularized by Edward Burnett Tylor in his 1871 book, Primitive Culture. Tylor did define it broadly, writing:
“The theory of Animism divides into two great dogmas, forming parts of one consistent doctrine; first, concerning souls of individual creatures, capable of continued existence after the death or destruction of the body; second, concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful deities. Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man’s life here and hereafter; and it being considered that they hold intercourse with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, and it might almost be said inevitably, sooner or later to active reverence and propitiation. Thus Animism, in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a future state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits, these doctrines practically resulting in some kind of active worship” (Tylor, Primitive Culture, 284.)
Basically, for Tylor, animism was a belief in souls or spirits that formed a nearly universal primitive belief in immaterial entities called “spirits” or “souls” that forms the basis, ultimately, of all of the religious traditions of the world. The term, as Tylor uses it, is sufficiently vague as to be not very useful. In the sense that we use it here, in this discussion, we mean it to denote the idea that all things, even those which appear to be inanimate, like stones or bodies of water, possess, or perhaps it is more apt to say participate in, life or consciousness in some degree, and that life and consciousness is itself a transcendent principle of existence itself. Further, we may also state that the transcendent life energy or consciousness we are speaking of is that mysterious quality that ancient people in every part of the world have called by many names, but that in English is called spirit or soul (two terms which have distinct meanings in esoteric tradition, but that are hopelessly confused in common usage).
In contrast, modernity views the various persons of nature as objects, devoid of sentience and personhood, to be moved aside or exploited without a second thought. It is very hard for Western people, such as myself, to extricate themselves from this way of viewing the natural world. The temptation to cut a tree just because it’s in the way or to radically alter land with machinery in order for it to fit some human development scheme, is deeply ingrained into our cultural heritage. Personally, as a farmer, I have spent years trying to rid myself of the conceit that I have the right to automatically impose my will on the land I manage and own. I still have to work the land according to the needs of crop production, as have generations of farmers before me. However, as I have grown in experience, and I like to think, maybe gained a bit of wisdom, I have learned that it is spiritually necessary to ask permission from the land and to acknowledge, reverentially, in voiced prayer and offerings that I am damaging and killing as I do the regular work of farmers everywhere, that of tilling the soil and mowing the vegetation. One must also consider the long term effects of every action one undertakes on the farm ecosystem as a whole, for example by avoiding the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, as well as implementing soil conservation practices. Meanwhile, it is also extremely important to express gratitude for the gifts received from the land and nature. And when it is necessary to kill living things in order to maintain the balance or to save a crop from excessive damage, one should acknowledge the loss and to honor the spirit of the living things involved. Ultimately, one expresses oneself directly to the powers of the land and nature because one wants to show respect to those powers directly and not through an intermediary.
The act of voicing respect or gratitude ceremonially changes one’s self, helping to internalize the idea that one is participating in a community of beings. It may feel silly at first, like playacting, but ritual is a highly effective means of bringing about psychological change, and helps us to cultivate reverence and respect toward the living things with which we share the land. Developing that respect changes the relationship we have with nature in positive ways. However, developing that relationship of respect is not always easy at first.
When I began my farming career nearly 30 years ago, I had many problems with rabbits and deer eating my crops. One morning I woke up and walked out to the garden where I had planted broccoli and cabbage plants the day before. I discovered that the rabbits had consumed about 50 seedlings in one night, seriously damaging the planting by eating a large percentage of the crop. I was devastated. So, as a consequence, I responded by walking around with a flashlight and a shotgun at night and shooting at anything that moved around my gardens. Crows would pull up my corn seedlings as they emerged and I would frequently lose a crop before it even had a chance to get started, which was very frustrating. I was always alert, rifle at the ready, to shoot the crows as they yanked the young corn seedlings out of the ground hundreds of yards away. Mostly I missed, and they would fly away only to come back when I wasn’t paying attention. Basically, I was constantly at war with the wild animals on the farm, an attitude that is unfortunately very common in the farming culture in the region where I live.
It has taken me years to break myself of this defensive habit of mind and the action which flows from it. It is easy to get caught in this type of thinking because it relies on a simple logic: The animals eat my crops, if I kill the animals, the damage stops for a little while. But the problem persists and intensifies. As long as my spirit is at war with the spirits of the place, I will have no peace with the land and its creatures. I don’t want to mislead you by telling you that now I have no problems with crop damage from the local wildlife, but I can tell you that now that I have a practice involving acts of reverence for the land and its spirits and the higher forces that animate the natural world, the crop damage is much less, and my relationship with the animals much more peaceful. The crows, in particular, have become more friendly, and many crow families now raise their young in the trees around the farm and do only very modest damage to the emerging corn, preferring to wait to eat it until the ears are fully formed. That’s fine with me because there’s plenty for everyone. The deer leave the corn alone until the winter as well, giving me a chance to harvest what I need. As a matter of fact, the corn crop is mostly left for the wildlife, due to the fact that we hand harvest it, which is time consuming, and we can never seem to finish the job. I don’t think that the fact that there has been less wildlife damage since I began giving offerings to the land spirits is a cause and effect situation. It seems more likely that there is a positive attitude of mutuality that has developed between us, as farmers, and the creatures of the land, that has flowed from our gradual decision to adopt a more benevolent and less adversarial posture to the land and its creatures.
In the understanding that arises from an animist cosmology combined with a magical worldview, the world is filled with sentience and consciousness, with persons with whom one can and should communicate. It would be rude not to. If what were once understood to be a collection of objects are now understood to be a community of persons in independent relationships, then one can cultivate that relationship to make agreements of mutual benefit. In Bill Whitcomb’s useful book The Magician’s Companion, the author lists 20 axioms that inform a magical worldview. Axiom XIII, the Law of Personification, pertains directly to our discussion of animism. It states: “Any concepts, forces, object[s], or phenomena may be considered to be alive, to have personality, to be an entity.” (Whitcomb, 1993, 15.) This applies to the things of the natural world as much to one’s car, or especially as to the spirits magicians evoke. If it is a person, then deals can be made with it, and a relationship formed with it. With caution and always with respect.
One should start small at first, opening with generosity and friendship, not asking for anything, merely giving small offerings and expressing gratitude, with sincerity and an open heart. Later, after you have been doing that for a while, you can start to ask, as I have, that for small favors, such as that the animals leave your crops alone, or that the deadly tornadoes dissipate harmlessly. Recently, I was working in the field on a swelteringly hot day, sweat pouring down my face and into my eyes. I was getting dangerously hot and tired and I stopped for a moment, spread out my arms, inhaled and visualized earth energy flowing up from beneath my feet into the energy center in my belly, replenishing my depleted reserves. Next, I called upon the air elementals, and their king, Paralda, in the name of the Creator, and asked that they send me a breeze to refresh me. To my surprise, the stifling air started to stir and a small breeze began to blow, cooling me noticeably so I could finish my work. I make no claims about being able to control the breeze, but it was a fortuitous coincidence and was definitely worth a try. My exemplar in this type of technique was my friend Salvador, an elderly farmer from the mountains of the state of Zacatecas, Mexico who worked with me for 8 years on my farm. When we were working together in the field on a stiflingly hot day, such as the one described above, he would say “I’m going to ask God to send a little cloud to cast a bit of shade on us.” When he did this, he would bow his head in silent prayer and more often than not, the little cloud would come and cast a very welcome bit of shade on us.
But the small and very down to earth spirit forces on a farm are not the only forces we need to acknowledge and honor, there are larger entities, directing hierarchies of spirit forces, those beings that we call the gods, who are traditionally thought to be given charge over whole spheres of influence, such that one could be called the god of rain, another the goddess of grain, another still the god of animals, and so on, in a fantastic variety in many cultures. Monotheistic faiths have replaced the multiplicity of gods with myriads of angels who communicate the will of God to creation. Whether you view the spiritual cosmos from the standpoint of its ultimate unity or its phenomenal diversity, seems to me a question more of emphasis than of difference. I believe there is a level of unity whereby all things descend from a single divine Source, which is what some call God or Creator, and I do that too, but I also find it helpful to address the spirit forces given charge over specific departments of nature, especially when I need help with something within their sphere of influence. For instance, in the example above, when I wanted the deer to leave the garden alone, I prayed to the antlered Celtic god Cernunnos, because he seemed to be appropriate. So far, that seems to have been an effective method. I detailed this experience in an earlier post, link here.
Many cultures have also acknowledged the Earth or Nature as a divine mother, the holy source of everything that is, who gives us life and everything we need. Sky or storm deities are also abundant in global mythology, and it is to them that we can appeal for rain or protection from dangerous storms. The Sun is obviously also the source of life and the heat and energy, and it has been recognized as divine worldwide. The Moon and the stars that light the sky at night have been considered divine cosmic powers since ancient times in cultures worldwide. Tracking their movements and influence on the world here below has given us the spiritual science and art of astrology. The animal life upon which we all depend for food has also been perceived as having a divine patron, and some version of the Great Animal Master is found in many hunting and pastoral cultures worldwide, and theriomorphic deities representing the animal instincts and powers are likewise nearly universal. When constructing our own version of agrarian polytheism, we can draw from these universal archetypes, fleshing them out with the stories of both local and global mythology to the extent that they fit with our land, our seasons, and our spiritual inclinations.
Like a world in miniature, a farm is a community of living things, ideally a diverse community, composed of various microclimates and niches from which food products can be sustainably raised. That some of the animals and plants are harvested for food for human communities does not detract from the fact that they are seen as persons and are necessary to the functioning of the whole. Hunter-gatherer societies the world over are well known to have been animistic in outlook, but that way of seeing and relating to the world did not disappear with the beginning of agriculture, indeed, it merely shifted the focus a bit. Animism is innate to human beings, it develops spontaneously in children, and in so-called civilized people, it fades away in later childhood due to the absorption of cultural prejudices. It is, therefore, a nearly universal way of seeing, not unique to any particular culture or stage of cultural development, and is just as applicable to those who work the land and raise crops and animals for food as it is to those who hunt or gather them. We are all dependent on the same natural forces in order to live however we acquire the necessities of life.
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, introduces the concept of what he calls “the buffered self”, the primary psychological condition in the disenchanted modern world. In this condition, the sense of self is bounded, armored, cut off from the external spiritual influences which are ubiquitous in pre-modern, “enchanted” cultures and societies. In the minds of pre-modern people, says Taylor, “the porous self is vulnerable, to spirits, to demons, to cosmic forces” (Taylor, A Secular Age, 38.) I imagine this extends to less thoroughly disenchanted cultures alive in the world today, for whom interaction with spirits is still a fact of daily life. Accompanying the construction of the buffered self is a concurrent experience of malaise, the despair attendant upon living in a world free from magic and mystery. The pre-modern porous self, in contrast with the buffered self of the secular modern age, experiences the world as an enchanted realm of magic and spiritual presences, of gods and daimons, a speaking and whispering universe alive with animate presence.
The science of psychology took an animist turn in the 20th century when trying to map the denizens of the human self. Pioneering psychologist Carl Jung posited the concepts of both archetypes and complexes, key ideas relating to independent mind-like structures acting on the personality from both within and even beyond the mind of the individual. The modern school of psychological therapy known as Internal Family Systems works to help people to integrate and heal fragmentary sub-personalities known as burdens, which arise from early traumatic experiences and can hijack “our” consciousness in times of stress. The integration of burdens and subconscious complexes is a critically important and necessary part of the work of spiritual growth for most of us, but the presences we are interested in here in this context aren’t the scattered fragments of personal trauma that interest the psychologist. As modern agrarian pagans and animists, in our practice we are trying to get beyond the personal noise of all of our psychic “parts”, and begin to interact with the intelligences present in the land and nature itself, and with the larger more transcendent entities that shape the world of manifestation we experience as reality. We are, in other words, interested in gnosis, in direct spiritual experience in our relationship with the land and the natural world. And we want to extract from this gnosis a praxis that helps us maintain the ecological and spiritual balance on the land we find ourselves temporary stewards of and in the communities, both human and non-human, in which we live.
Since many of us have been brought up in a disenchanted materialist culture that sees nature as a collection of random biological and physical systems interacting without purpose or intelligence, it is difficult to imagine other ways of seeing the world. For this reason it is important for those of us who were encultured to have strongly buffered selves, to seek knowledge to help us to stay porous and open with wisdom and discernment. The buffer has become a prison, isolating us from the spiritual reality we deeply crave. And with the rise of therapeutic modalities such as IFS and depth psychology, the buffer is increasingly being revealed to be illusory. The self has always been porous, and the more conscious we are of the interplay of influence between inside and outside, between our minds and others, the less likely we are to become the victims of outside agendas, whether human or non-human. What the buffer has principally kept out is the sense of being connected to a realm of spiritual realities larger than our limited egos.
We must become the students, learning older ways of seeing, from both our own past, recorded in the books of antiquarians, historians, and folklorists, and even from the jaded anthropological texts written by authors such as James George Frazer, whose influential career straddled the 19th and early 20th century. He painstakingly recorded the customs of enchanted, animist cultures, while simultaneously ridiculing them for their naivete and primitivism. We must see past the shameful ethnocentrism revealed in the work of these scholars in order to glean useful wisdom from the long dead informants whose words and customs are recorded on the pages of tomes like The Golden Bough. We can also, cautiously, respectfully, learn from modern indigenous peoples, whose nature centered folkways are still intact, while seeking to apply those understandings to the land that we find ourselves tending.
In many ways, in constructing this way of seeing and interacting with the land and its animate presences we are connecting with something that is both new and ancient, but here in North America we are without a clear tradition. North American pagans of European ancestry have inherited a situation that is very different from our European brethren, whose mythology and ritual is appropriate to their land, its seasons, and its spirits. The land we live on was stolen, and relatively recently, from the indigenous cultures who had lived here for millennia. There can be no land based spirituality for North Americans that doesn’t take this into account. Here, our landvaettir (the Old Norse word for land spirits) are Native American, not Celtic, Norse or Greek. The gods of the land were known by other names before Europeans came, and one of the first things European settlers did to the people they found here was to try to destroy the native people’s relationship with their spirits by imposing Christianity on them. The spirits of the land are also the ancestors of place, the departed residents who inhabited the land before us. Where I live, there have only been people of European descent living here since the 1780’s, a mere fraction of the time this land has been inhabited by humans. Stone spear points of the type known as Clovis, one of the oldest designs found in North America, were found, along with the bones of megafauna such as woolly mammoths and giant sloths in early excavations in 1807 at the site known as Big Bone Lick, which is about 20 miles from our farm. The Clovis points found in Kentucky were made between 9,500 and 9,000 BCE, during the last ice age (link). This land is ancient and the present European layer of culture is the thinnest veneer.
Likewise, the gods honored before the coming of the European settlers do not have exact parallels with those of the pantheons of the old world. Since the land was inhabited for such a long time by so many distinct cultures, none of whom preserved the names of their deities in writing, much of the lore and mythology has been lost. Archaeology and ethnology can reconstruct some of the ancient religion of the so-called mound builder cultures of the Southeast and the works of Charles Hudson are invaluable in this regard. (Here are links to two excellent titles, The Southeastern Indians and Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa.) I believe those gods and their worshippers are still here in spirit, even though their physical descendents were removed during the shameful genocidal Indian Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Those tragic times have also left their spiritual traces on the land as did the disastrous epidemics that preceded them shortly after the arrival of the first Europeans in this land. As stated earlier, there can be no true relationship with the spirits of these conquered lands that does not acknowledge their tragic history. The dead and their gods are still present in the land, which holds its memory indefinitely, and they must be honored and respected. They are, collectively, the genius loci.
So for me, practical agrarian animism means living in right relation to the place, its animals and plants, its spirits and its history. It is also important to live in good relation, as much as possible, with the human community one finds oneself in, by trying to be a good neighbor and a positive presence. My feeling is that our role, as agrarian pagans and animists, in this place and time, is to be mediators, on behalf of our communities, with the spirits of nature and place, even if the communities we live in don't acknowledge a need for such mediation. The spirits of place need to be heard and acknowledged in order for all of us to live in peace with the land and with nature. And in this time of increased fear and violence, listening to the voice of the land, and projecting peace is more necessary than ever.
An easy practice to get started on the work of connecting to the spirits of place:
Go out to a place on the land near you, a place that is safe and which feels right, one that inspires you or feels private and special. I prefer night time because it is quiet and I’m less likely to be disturbed. Bring a portable chair, an offering and a sincere and open mind. You can make this little practice as much of a ritual as you want. What we’re trying to do is induce a state of liminality, and to make a space where we can meet the spirits. Many, myself among them, find ritual props, like incense, drums, tools, statues, candles, etc. helpful for setting the mood.
Ask permission to enter your sacred space from the spirits of the place, and be attentive to the signs which may follow. You may purify the space and yourself. Then you may want to invite all of the benevolent powers of place, the spirits of the land, the ancestors and any gods or guides you find helpful. And just sit and wait. Make your offering. Be attentive and see what presences show themselves. An animal may appear, or a breeze may suddenly rise, causing the leaves on nearby trees to flutter, a bird may call, or a coyote. Reach out into the surrounding space with an open mind and look inwardly to see what impressions, or thoughts come up. At this point you may want to use your imagination, and to picture a being emerging from the landscape to speak to you. What kind of being are they? An animal? A human? A god? What are they wearing? Try not to lead the experience too much, just enough at first to initiate the dialog with the other. Pay attention to what they tell you, remember it and write the details down when you're finished. When you get tired, (and this type of exercise can be surprisingly tiring, but maybe that’s because it's always after midnight when I get started), close the ritual down by thanking all of the spirits you called and sitting and breathing for a few moments as you return to your senses.
With frequent practice, the experience becomes more vivid. A note of caution: Experimenting with porosity, alone and without training, is not without risks. This type of practice is safe for most people, but I concede that it might not be safe for some people or in some places. While I don’t usually get frightened of any of the beings I encounter in a basic exercise like this, I can imagine that some readers are more sensitive than I am, or perhaps practicing in a place that has heavier and darker presences than my farm does. You may want to familiarize yourself with basic banishing rituals or prayers and other practices that can shut down the experience if anything gets out of hand. Some suggestions are the perennial favorite known as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (link), or the neo Druidical ritual known as the sphere of protection (link). Both of these are good practices to know, and both are discussed in detail, in relation to land based agrarian magic in my upcoming book, The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology and Folklore (link) which is available for preorder now, but due to be released in March of 2026. [One tip regarding the LBRP: I have heard other practitioners saying that it is offensive to banish land beings that one is trying to work with, which makes a certain amount of sense, so practice that one when you return home, to ensure you haven’t brought anything unwelcome home with you.
Be sure to preorder a copy of The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magic, Mythology, and Folklore here.
Bibliography and Recommended Reading:
Harvey, Graham, Animism: Respecting the Living World.
Tylor, Edward Burnett, Primitive Culture.
Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age, .
Whitcomb, Bill, The Magician’s Companion
Falconer, Robert, The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession.
Kentucky Heritage Council, Paleoindian Period, heritage.ky.gov, accessed 7/14/2025
Frazer, James George, The Golden Bough
Hudson, Charles, The Southeastern Indians
- Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa
I am concerned with idealizing animism too far and hence being tempted by the "noble savage" myth. Pre-modern people certainly did their share of clear cutting, running herds of animals off of cliffs, and early shifts from hunting to farming is arguably on of *the* biggest impacts on the ecosystem. Meanwhile, the "green revolution" aided by modern scientific conceptions of nature actually allowed us to produce more food with much less land use. I am less and less convinced that that ancient people were any more environmentally minded than we were, so much as limited in the effects they could cause at the time.
Even the idea of children being connected to nature until suppressed by civilization comes to us from the modernist continental Enlightenment philosophy of Rosseau - who was reacting to industrialization (and its much greater effects on the land) rather than ascertaining some long lost mindset. Plus animism being associated with childhood can be seen as patronizing to ancient cultures, and was used as such. Maybe some 'social prejudices' are beneficial?
Phenomenologically, it makes sense for us to frame the interactions between phenomena as a story with agents. Yet my conscious mind seems to be of a different caliber than the mind of a cow, and plants that react to sunlight and rain don't seem to involve brains like either the man or the cow...meanwhile a rock does nothing apparently agentic. Hence I am also wary about a nebulous concept of "consciousness" that does not seem to apply evenly across objects and creatures. I cannot be sure I am not projecting my own mind onto other things with their own minds or lack thereof, that deserve to be understood on their own terms as much as mine.
Wonderful comments to read. My humble comment is simple. To rise in the dark, go outside and greet the four directions and give thanks for the devas and spirit beings of the land is my gift from my land. I then made my first listen of this day your instructive essay. It has brought me much joy in existence. Yes, I am an idealist and it has served me well. Thanks for this gift of this day.