Ghost In folklore, a ghost (sometimes known as an apparition, haunt, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter or spectre, spirit, spook, and wraith) is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or...
Nature Worship Nature worship is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive...
Animism Animism (from the Latin: animus or anima, meaning mind or soul) refers to a belief in numerous personalized, supernatural beings endowed with reason, intelligence and/or volition, that inhabit both objects and living beings and govern their existences. More simply, it is the belief that “everything is conscious” or that “everything has a soul.” The term has been further extended...
Paganism Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning “a country dweller or rustic”) is a term that has been used from antiquity to derogatorily denote polytheistic faiths. Since the term was typically used as a blanket statement to circumscribe all non-Christian (or, more broadly, non-monotheistic) faiths, it served the same pejorative purpose as the Jewish term gentile, the...
What Is Tengrism? Tengrism, also known as Tengriism, Tenggerism, or Tengrianism, is a Central Asian religion characterized by shamanism, animism, totemism, polytheism, and monotheism, and ancestor worship. It was the prevailing religion of the Turks, Mongols, Hungarians, Bulgars, Xiongnu, and, possibly, the Huns, and the religion of the several medieval states: Göktürk Khaganate, Western Turkic...
Magic And Religion Magical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspect of religion. Magic is prevalent in all societies, regardless of whether they have organized religion or more general systems of animism or shamanism. Religion and magic became conceptually separated with the development of western monotheism, where the distinction arose between supernatural events...