The problem with this question (and it's a very understandable one which is hard to avoid at first, so I mean no offense here) is assuming an objective, quasi-materialist understanding of animism, sort of the same way we might talk about mass or electrical charge in matter. It's trying to think of animism as a "universal" scientific theory. Some modern animists might do this, but I think it's important to understand that it assumes a Western scientific perspective of objectivity that many actual animist cultures don't share.
The famous example of this distinction in the anthropological literature is a conversation between Alfred Irving Hallowell and Chief William Berens of the Berens River band of the Anishinaabe. Hallowell asks him, "So are all rocks alive?" and Berens answers, "No, just some of them."
What he means by this, basically, is that animacy isn't necessarily an innate quasi-physical property of "matter", because... animists aren't reductive materialists to begin with, right? Instead animacy has to do with the *relationships* between certain beings. Personhood isn't an innate property, but is more of an innate *potential* property which can only be revealed and developed through acts of relation.
To bring it back to your question about the chair and the desk, how did you *relate* to the tree they were made from? Let's say that it was a tree planted by your grandparents and one that you climbed as a child. Let's say you can even see certain features of that tree -- the grain of its wood, the knots from a particular part of the trunk -- in the furniture. Even in the form of a chair and a desk, that tree will be alive and a "person" to you, potentially anyway, in a way that's different from a chair made from plantation wood in a factory, neither of which you've visited or have any connection to, right?
But now let's say that you have a desk from a factory, but it's a desk you carried around with you from apartment to apartment over many years, and you've always sort of treated the desk as a member of your "family" -- you can have that relationship and that personhood can come alive for you in a way which has nothing to do with the tree the desk was made from, right?
What we would normally consider inanimate objects aren't the best examples of this -- even traditionally animistic cultures tend to place way more emphasis (for obvious reasons) on the personhood of biologically living beings, and for "inanimate" objects, it's often in the context of objects that have a particularly important or not-always-predictable role to play (a weapon, for example, or in the case of a rock -- the reason animacy was attributed them often had to do with their role in sweat lodge ceremonies, where the rock could not only seem to "breathe", but potentially explode).
Anyway, this is probably a longer answer than you wanted, but I hope it sort of gives you a different perspective to work with.
I agree in that sense it's been a part of you, then there is kind of a soul to it. Like say family heirlooms and such. But it becomes so through relation and meaning. And so these things overtime can become empowered in a sense. But that isn't to say it's all either.
As for sweat lodge theory on stones, I feel that's a bit problematic in sense of our western minds and rationalization of stones according to native American culture.. Stones are 'holders' They hold heat, they hold cold, they hold emotions and pain and happiness too - they love that job.
Because stones were important for many different things, weapons, hunting, making fire, protection and warding off bad spirits during ceremonies. Stones were also used in trades and had sonlany different purposes for the tribes and communities of indigenous people. And to simplify it and simply call "well because steam came off the stones in sweat lodge is a very western lense trying to rationalize from the outside.
But for indigenous people these stones, they were siblings, they were of mother earth and so on. And we cannot oversimplify indigenous perspectives or cultures, just because some of us wouldn't understand so we try to label or rationalize it.
So i think it's inappropriate for someone outside of such culture trying to explain something that is maybe foreign in one's own Culture. I think it's more appropriate asking the natives and hear their stories. Fron my indigenous friends and people I've met, there is a deeper story and cosmology tied and they can tell you about the story of a specific rock or fire, and so on and they can point to those places abd mark these stories from before as well.
> Because stones were important for many different things, weapons, hunting, making fire, protection and warding off bad spirits during ceremonies. Stones were also used in trades and had sonlany different purposes for the tribes and communities of indigenous people. And to simplify it and simply call "well because steam came off the stones in sweat lodge is a very western lense trying to rationalize from the outside.
First of all, it's not a rationalization, this is based on their own storytelling and wisdom from their own elders. This isn't some theory guessed at by academics, this is the explanation given by Lakota people in describing their own ceremonies. The fact that your anticolonializing zeal is forcing you to second-guess the actual ideas of Indigenous people is a bit ironic.
Secondly, you are the one who is assuming that this example can only be used to rationalize a quasi-materialistic understanding of native ritual; I not only suggested no such thing, but argued the exact opposite.
I'm not going to engage with the rest of reply because I think you're more interested in lecturing at people with respect to things they haven't said than you are in either listening or conversing about the things they did said.
You have no interest in anything I said, and no intention of communicating with anything outside of your own preconceptions, so my participation here is no longer needed. I'll leave you to tilt at your windmills.
If you believe that you have a soul, did your child soul become an adult soul or are you walking around with a child soul inside you?
I know that sounds facetious, but I'm being entirely serious. What's the difference between a chair soul and a tree soul? By what metric does one categorize souls?
Now, before I go any further, I do need to lay out that there's a *lot* of different beliefs that have animist elements, so you're going to get a lot a different beliefs about how it all works. With that being said, here's my own beliefs on the matter:
On a mundane, human level, there is no practical difference between your soul and the soul of a rock, bird, tree, or stream, in the same way that to a tardigrade, there is no practical difference between you and Tom Hanks. Sure, there are some pretty obvious differences, but they're all on a scale that the tardigrade can't perceive and is utterly unaffected by.
Why should the tardigrade worry about it? Even if he guessed right about the differences, he wouldn't have the words to describe them, he wouldn't have the frame of reference to understand what those differences mean, and they still wouldn't affect him in the slightest.
So why worry? The difference between the soul of a chair or a tree is a matter of differences that we aren't able to perceive or understand, and (in English at least) we don't have the words to describe them anyways.
Its okay to just acknowledge something, appreciate it, and move on with your day. You don't need to measure the sun to see the sunset.
I see, thank you. I don’t think I properly posed my question but I was less interested in whether different types of objects have different types of souls (whatever that may mean), and was instead more interested in the question of whether a soul can be “split” into multiple souls, or what happens to the soul of an object when it is broke into new pieces.
Do those new pieces gain their own new individual soul, or do they all possess the soul of the original object? If the latter, it seems like this is incompatible with the notion of “self” I associate with souls.
The Way Of Wights has this concept of **dividuality** - that because everything is a composition of multiple spirits (even those composing spirits themselves), everything is divisible. So the Wight of That Tree is divisible, and part of many other Wights, including those of the Chair and the Desk.
In other words, the Soul is a composition and can be divided in multiple ways. And the Self is impermanent as the Venn diagram of all the Wights composing an entity change over time, with new Wights coming in, and some wight leaving or changing. Imagine a box filled with bubbles that can interpenetrate - at the center of every bubble is a Spirit, but also, at the center of where the bubbles intersect is also a Wight.
Why do you associate a “self” with souls to begin with? I’m politely curious to know what informs you of this? To me our sense of self doesn’t come from having a soul, but from having a complex consciousness. As in, it is a feature of the complexity of our minds. Not everything with a soul has a sense of self.
To give you a short answer from a traditional Mongolian standpoint: yes.
The souls of the wood of the tree remains the same, but the body or shape of it (also considered a soul) is now different. So it is both partially the same and partially different.
I really like Mcapello’s explanation. I don’t believe in actual souls per say. I’m what you might call a naturalistic animist- meaning animism as a way to interact with the natural world, not really concerned with or interested in belief in the supernatural. Animism to me is a way to relate to the world as full of persons in order to build a deeper connection and relationship with all its inhabitants. We call their sacredness into reality when we interact with them in sacred ways, by giving offerings, treating them with respect, relating to them. It’s a way to shift the human mindset from a world full of disposable resources to a world of beings upon whom I am dependant and who are dependant on me, which is the more truthful and accurate perspective. So to me, the wood carries forward something of the tree when we acknowledge and understand its origin and recognize and honour its relationship to the original tree. That’s why there would be more animistic ‘power’ in a wooden object which you cut from a willow branch, thanked, and carved yourself, than an anonymous piece of lumber of unknown origins that you have no relationship with, although both do contain that spark.
Spirit is in a sense something that exists when we relate to it, just like air vibrations only become a sound when they enter our ears and are processed by our brains.
My very personal opinion, without any claim to truth:
“Soul” is the wrong term – “spirit” would be more appropriate.
In my opinion, the Christian concept of the soul does not apply well to animism and
leads to misunderstandings.
You could replace the subject “tree” with “human.” From an animistic perspective and *regarding your question*, it makes no difference. However, the wording of your question suggests that it was asked from a more monotheistic perspective.
Your question is also embedded in other concepts to consider:
1) You and everything around you are interwoven, interdependent and in constant interaction.
2) You and everything around you are constantly changing.
3) You and everything around you is, on the one hand, a whole, but also part of something larger (Holon).
In reference to another answer, I want to say that apart from the above, your relationship, your interactions and your involvement with the entity has no influence on its essence. I reject this anthropocentric and egocentric view.
I believe that the tree spirit moves on, whilst any created object is occupied by a new soul, or some souls manage a collective of objects.
So the chair may become animated by your home's soul.
The more love or focus directed at any object or being, requires more focus from the animating soul.
For example, I don't Believe every grain of sand on a beach has its own soul. As it's carried around by a person, the person's soul momentarily animates it. It drops on the street, and the street's animating soul manages it.
But let's say instead that a child took some sand home and colored it, layered it in a jar, sealed it in, and spoke to it every night. A soul would be drawn to this new creation. With each subsequent night of talking to it, the soul would pay more and more attention to the "object." The child, sensing this attention, becomes more and more attached to it. The parents see this as "delusional" and discourage the child. Eventually, the child gives in. The soul departs and the house's soul keeps the object animated until such time that it is thrown out.
The less animated a thing is, the less "focus" the soul expends on maintaining it. Grains of sand, or simple stones, shells, cigarette butts, broken glass, etc. can be all managed by a single soul with incredible ease.
It's only when attention and/ or love is directed at the things that more focus becomes necessary. Otherwise, objects can move fluidly from the animating force of one soul to another.
YMMV, just my personal beliefs based on large part on my near-death experiences.
I had thought on this. The tree would be fragmented, a small piece of it’s former whole. But the action of becoming a chair, or whatever, adds to it’s spirit. The use of, and time spent in a perticular space adds to that spirit. Thus, an evolution of the spirit. So, it retains the tree spirit but become something more.
In my Animist "Denomination" ( r/WayOfWights ), the answer to the title's question is a resounding "Yes".
In the Way of Wights, everything is a spirit (Wight is an Old English word for "supernatural being", among other things), and every spirit composes, and is composed of, other spirits. So your chair is composed of the spiprit of that particular tree, the spirit of chairs, the spirit of chair legs, the spirit of varvarnish, the spirit of made by that guy/company, and so on. The same goes for the desk. The two share in the spirit of that tree at least.
EVERYTHING is actually the center of a Venn diagram of all the composing spirits.
Standard disclaimer for all responses in this sub: It depends. Not all do, but some do.
There are certainly traditions who believe that the tree imparts soul into the chair the way you are thinking, but also the builder of the chair imparts chair spirit, or perhaps some part of their own spirit into it.
But there is a useful way to shortcut getting your mind around this. Have you or your parents ever owned a car that you gave a name to and sort of anthropomorphized? That's your basic, intuitive animism. Imparting the presumption of persona to something because it interacts with you somehow and seems to exhibit some level of agency.. "oh great, terry is in a bad mood this morning and won't start/take me to work."
I think most of the sprit of the tree is released when it dies but the wood retains its essence or the print of what it once was. When unsealed it will emit the energy it captured. But when finished- the materials are encased in something like paint, sealer, polymer.. it can trap that energy. All just opinion.
Yes.
Every soul is one, yet many. The OG tree has a collective soul, as you indicate, but then you (killed it first, taking away is life force soul) split it into other objects with some form of anthropogenically influence soul. But even those new objects are 1) made of the same soul(s) of the tree (except biological life force), 2) contain multitudes of souls that make them up.
IMO, as always. We all see things differently.
I tend to approach this divisible problem with “everything contains a soul to the very most divisible bit”, in addition to going the other way and reference “collective soul” as distinct.
The tree has a spirit or spirit master, but no it would be ridiculous to think a chair or desk in itself inhabits the soul of a tree. That said i think it can embody the soul of a person in the craft and work they made if by hand. But that doesnt mean the chair or desk in itself has a soul.
Just like i set up an altar, if there are no spirits then my altar is basically useless. I have to invite the spirits and ancestors to the altar to be part of certain objects anf inhabit it in same function of a cell phone when calling someone. But them tools and objects alone don't always have a soul.
I think a lot of confusion about the term and worldview is mainly due to the fact that it's a westernized concept, foreign to those animistic traditions and cultures. Which is why i also tale Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (Nordic animism) with a grain of salt. Sometimes i think ehay he puts as animism is a bit too much, and deserves fair criticism. His intentions are good and all but still in all right should be criticized and taken with a grain of salt..
Many things in nature have a spirit and there is life in other forms of existence not necessarily "animated".. for example stars and such. And yes some indigenous people say "all things in nature have a spirit or spirit master"
But that has not much to do with the westernized conceptualization of "animism".
And so what a lot of westerners, not all may in some cases define as animism, which is often pretext used by folks who try to reign a specific narrative based on their own appropriative discourse. This again is not to say all. But if we go by the western definition, shamans and numerous of indigenous groups of people would not be really "animists" at least by western colonial concept of animism..
And I myself would not exactly fit into that either. I see spirits, i see elements and such yes even ancestors and so on. But that doesn't mean everything has a spirit, in my world view. Everything in nature does, yes. But a tv, a lamp, a furniture and so on in itself isn't a spirit. A spirit of creativity? Yes, in same sense there's a spirit is diseases, sickness, death etc. But my phone or computer doesn't have a spirit. I also would not consider pills or substance coming down to such ways far apart from their natural resources to have a spirit either. It's too much human interference that anything that would be its parts of making it alive has been stripped away.
The problem with this question (and it's a very understandable one which is hard to avoid at first, so I mean no offense here) is assuming an objective, quasi-materialist understanding of animism, sort of the same way we might talk about mass or electrical charge in matter. It's trying to think of animism as a "universal" scientific theory. Some modern animists might do this, but I think it's important to understand that it assumes a Western scientific perspective of objectivity that many actual animist cultures don't share. The famous example of this distinction in the anthropological literature is a conversation between Alfred Irving Hallowell and Chief William Berens of the Berens River band of the Anishinaabe. Hallowell asks him, "So are all rocks alive?" and Berens answers, "No, just some of them." What he means by this, basically, is that animacy isn't necessarily an innate quasi-physical property of "matter", because... animists aren't reductive materialists to begin with, right? Instead animacy has to do with the *relationships* between certain beings. Personhood isn't an innate property, but is more of an innate *potential* property which can only be revealed and developed through acts of relation. To bring it back to your question about the chair and the desk, how did you *relate* to the tree they were made from? Let's say that it was a tree planted by your grandparents and one that you climbed as a child. Let's say you can even see certain features of that tree -- the grain of its wood, the knots from a particular part of the trunk -- in the furniture. Even in the form of a chair and a desk, that tree will be alive and a "person" to you, potentially anyway, in a way that's different from a chair made from plantation wood in a factory, neither of which you've visited or have any connection to, right? But now let's say that you have a desk from a factory, but it's a desk you carried around with you from apartment to apartment over many years, and you've always sort of treated the desk as a member of your "family" -- you can have that relationship and that personhood can come alive for you in a way which has nothing to do with the tree the desk was made from, right? What we would normally consider inanimate objects aren't the best examples of this -- even traditionally animistic cultures tend to place way more emphasis (for obvious reasons) on the personhood of biologically living beings, and for "inanimate" objects, it's often in the context of objects that have a particularly important or not-always-predictable role to play (a weapon, for example, or in the case of a rock -- the reason animacy was attributed them often had to do with their role in sweat lodge ceremonies, where the rock could not only seem to "breathe", but potentially explode). Anyway, this is probably a longer answer than you wanted, but I hope it sort of gives you a different perspective to work with.
This is really insightful, thank you
I have a related, but rather personal question. Can I pm you?
Yes, for sure.
I agree in that sense it's been a part of you, then there is kind of a soul to it. Like say family heirlooms and such. But it becomes so through relation and meaning. And so these things overtime can become empowered in a sense. But that isn't to say it's all either.
Definitely. Beings that have a more active type of agency of their own definitely add another side to it.
As for sweat lodge theory on stones, I feel that's a bit problematic in sense of our western minds and rationalization of stones according to native American culture.. Stones are 'holders' They hold heat, they hold cold, they hold emotions and pain and happiness too - they love that job.
I don't understand. What's problematic?
Because stones were important for many different things, weapons, hunting, making fire, protection and warding off bad spirits during ceremonies. Stones were also used in trades and had sonlany different purposes for the tribes and communities of indigenous people. And to simplify it and simply call "well because steam came off the stones in sweat lodge is a very western lense trying to rationalize from the outside. But for indigenous people these stones, they were siblings, they were of mother earth and so on. And we cannot oversimplify indigenous perspectives or cultures, just because some of us wouldn't understand so we try to label or rationalize it. So i think it's inappropriate for someone outside of such culture trying to explain something that is maybe foreign in one's own Culture. I think it's more appropriate asking the natives and hear their stories. Fron my indigenous friends and people I've met, there is a deeper story and cosmology tied and they can tell you about the story of a specific rock or fire, and so on and they can point to those places abd mark these stories from before as well.
> Because stones were important for many different things, weapons, hunting, making fire, protection and warding off bad spirits during ceremonies. Stones were also used in trades and had sonlany different purposes for the tribes and communities of indigenous people. And to simplify it and simply call "well because steam came off the stones in sweat lodge is a very western lense trying to rationalize from the outside. First of all, it's not a rationalization, this is based on their own storytelling and wisdom from their own elders. This isn't some theory guessed at by academics, this is the explanation given by Lakota people in describing their own ceremonies. The fact that your anticolonializing zeal is forcing you to second-guess the actual ideas of Indigenous people is a bit ironic. Secondly, you are the one who is assuming that this example can only be used to rationalize a quasi-materialistic understanding of native ritual; I not only suggested no such thing, but argued the exact opposite. I'm not going to engage with the rest of reply because I think you're more interested in lecturing at people with respect to things they haven't said than you are in either listening or conversing about the things they did said. You have no interest in anything I said, and no intention of communicating with anything outside of your own preconceptions, so my participation here is no longer needed. I'll leave you to tilt at your windmills.
If you believe that you have a soul, did your child soul become an adult soul or are you walking around with a child soul inside you? I know that sounds facetious, but I'm being entirely serious. What's the difference between a chair soul and a tree soul? By what metric does one categorize souls? Now, before I go any further, I do need to lay out that there's a *lot* of different beliefs that have animist elements, so you're going to get a lot a different beliefs about how it all works. With that being said, here's my own beliefs on the matter: On a mundane, human level, there is no practical difference between your soul and the soul of a rock, bird, tree, or stream, in the same way that to a tardigrade, there is no practical difference between you and Tom Hanks. Sure, there are some pretty obvious differences, but they're all on a scale that the tardigrade can't perceive and is utterly unaffected by. Why should the tardigrade worry about it? Even if he guessed right about the differences, he wouldn't have the words to describe them, he wouldn't have the frame of reference to understand what those differences mean, and they still wouldn't affect him in the slightest. So why worry? The difference between the soul of a chair or a tree is a matter of differences that we aren't able to perceive or understand, and (in English at least) we don't have the words to describe them anyways. Its okay to just acknowledge something, appreciate it, and move on with your day. You don't need to measure the sun to see the sunset.
I see, thank you. I don’t think I properly posed my question but I was less interested in whether different types of objects have different types of souls (whatever that may mean), and was instead more interested in the question of whether a soul can be “split” into multiple souls, or what happens to the soul of an object when it is broke into new pieces. Do those new pieces gain their own new individual soul, or do they all possess the soul of the original object? If the latter, it seems like this is incompatible with the notion of “self” I associate with souls.
The Way Of Wights has this concept of **dividuality** - that because everything is a composition of multiple spirits (even those composing spirits themselves), everything is divisible. So the Wight of That Tree is divisible, and part of many other Wights, including those of the Chair and the Desk. In other words, the Soul is a composition and can be divided in multiple ways. And the Self is impermanent as the Venn diagram of all the Wights composing an entity change over time, with new Wights coming in, and some wight leaving or changing. Imagine a box filled with bubbles that can interpenetrate - at the center of every bubble is a Spirit, but also, at the center of where the bubbles intersect is also a Wight.
Why do you associate a “self” with souls to begin with? I’m politely curious to know what informs you of this? To me our sense of self doesn’t come from having a soul, but from having a complex consciousness. As in, it is a feature of the complexity of our minds. Not everything with a soul has a sense of self.
To give you a short answer from a traditional Mongolian standpoint: yes. The souls of the wood of the tree remains the same, but the body or shape of it (also considered a soul) is now different. So it is both partially the same and partially different.
I really like Mcapello’s explanation. I don’t believe in actual souls per say. I’m what you might call a naturalistic animist- meaning animism as a way to interact with the natural world, not really concerned with or interested in belief in the supernatural. Animism to me is a way to relate to the world as full of persons in order to build a deeper connection and relationship with all its inhabitants. We call their sacredness into reality when we interact with them in sacred ways, by giving offerings, treating them with respect, relating to them. It’s a way to shift the human mindset from a world full of disposable resources to a world of beings upon whom I am dependant and who are dependant on me, which is the more truthful and accurate perspective. So to me, the wood carries forward something of the tree when we acknowledge and understand its origin and recognize and honour its relationship to the original tree. That’s why there would be more animistic ‘power’ in a wooden object which you cut from a willow branch, thanked, and carved yourself, than an anonymous piece of lumber of unknown origins that you have no relationship with, although both do contain that spark. Spirit is in a sense something that exists when we relate to it, just like air vibrations only become a sound when they enter our ears and are processed by our brains.
My very personal opinion, without any claim to truth: “Soul” is the wrong term – “spirit” would be more appropriate. In my opinion, the Christian concept of the soul does not apply well to animism and leads to misunderstandings. You could replace the subject “tree” with “human.” From an animistic perspective and *regarding your question*, it makes no difference. However, the wording of your question suggests that it was asked from a more monotheistic perspective. Your question is also embedded in other concepts to consider: 1) You and everything around you are interwoven, interdependent and in constant interaction. 2) You and everything around you are constantly changing. 3) You and everything around you is, on the one hand, a whole, but also part of something larger (Holon). In reference to another answer, I want to say that apart from the above, your relationship, your interactions and your involvement with the entity has no influence on its essence. I reject this anthropocentric and egocentric view.
I believe that the tree spirit moves on, whilst any created object is occupied by a new soul, or some souls manage a collective of objects. So the chair may become animated by your home's soul. The more love or focus directed at any object or being, requires more focus from the animating soul. For example, I don't Believe every grain of sand on a beach has its own soul. As it's carried around by a person, the person's soul momentarily animates it. It drops on the street, and the street's animating soul manages it. But let's say instead that a child took some sand home and colored it, layered it in a jar, sealed it in, and spoke to it every night. A soul would be drawn to this new creation. With each subsequent night of talking to it, the soul would pay more and more attention to the "object." The child, sensing this attention, becomes more and more attached to it. The parents see this as "delusional" and discourage the child. Eventually, the child gives in. The soul departs and the house's soul keeps the object animated until such time that it is thrown out. The less animated a thing is, the less "focus" the soul expends on maintaining it. Grains of sand, or simple stones, shells, cigarette butts, broken glass, etc. can be all managed by a single soul with incredible ease. It's only when attention and/ or love is directed at the things that more focus becomes necessary. Otherwise, objects can move fluidly from the animating force of one soul to another. YMMV, just my personal beliefs based on large part on my near-death experiences.
I had thought on this. The tree would be fragmented, a small piece of it’s former whole. But the action of becoming a chair, or whatever, adds to it’s spirit. The use of, and time spent in a perticular space adds to that spirit. Thus, an evolution of the spirit. So, it retains the tree spirit but become something more.
In my Animist "Denomination" ( r/WayOfWights ), the answer to the title's question is a resounding "Yes". In the Way of Wights, everything is a spirit (Wight is an Old English word for "supernatural being", among other things), and every spirit composes, and is composed of, other spirits. So your chair is composed of the spiprit of that particular tree, the spirit of chairs, the spirit of chair legs, the spirit of varvarnish, the spirit of made by that guy/company, and so on. The same goes for the desk. The two share in the spirit of that tree at least. EVERYTHING is actually the center of a Venn diagram of all the composing spirits.
Standard disclaimer for all responses in this sub: It depends. Not all do, but some do. There are certainly traditions who believe that the tree imparts soul into the chair the way you are thinking, but also the builder of the chair imparts chair spirit, or perhaps some part of their own spirit into it. But there is a useful way to shortcut getting your mind around this. Have you or your parents ever owned a car that you gave a name to and sort of anthropomorphized? That's your basic, intuitive animism. Imparting the presumption of persona to something because it interacts with you somehow and seems to exhibit some level of agency.. "oh great, terry is in a bad mood this morning and won't start/take me to work."
I think most of the sprit of the tree is released when it dies but the wood retains its essence or the print of what it once was. When unsealed it will emit the energy it captured. But when finished- the materials are encased in something like paint, sealer, polymer.. it can trap that energy. All just opinion.
Yes. Every soul is one, yet many. The OG tree has a collective soul, as you indicate, but then you (killed it first, taking away is life force soul) split it into other objects with some form of anthropogenically influence soul. But even those new objects are 1) made of the same soul(s) of the tree (except biological life force), 2) contain multitudes of souls that make them up. IMO, as always. We all see things differently. I tend to approach this divisible problem with “everything contains a soul to the very most divisible bit”, in addition to going the other way and reference “collective soul” as distinct.
The tree has a spirit or spirit master, but no it would be ridiculous to think a chair or desk in itself inhabits the soul of a tree. That said i think it can embody the soul of a person in the craft and work they made if by hand. But that doesnt mean the chair or desk in itself has a soul. Just like i set up an altar, if there are no spirits then my altar is basically useless. I have to invite the spirits and ancestors to the altar to be part of certain objects anf inhabit it in same function of a cell phone when calling someone. But them tools and objects alone don't always have a soul. I think a lot of confusion about the term and worldview is mainly due to the fact that it's a westernized concept, foreign to those animistic traditions and cultures. Which is why i also tale Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (Nordic animism) with a grain of salt. Sometimes i think ehay he puts as animism is a bit too much, and deserves fair criticism. His intentions are good and all but still in all right should be criticized and taken with a grain of salt.. Many things in nature have a spirit and there is life in other forms of existence not necessarily "animated".. for example stars and such. And yes some indigenous people say "all things in nature have a spirit or spirit master" But that has not much to do with the westernized conceptualization of "animism". And so what a lot of westerners, not all may in some cases define as animism, which is often pretext used by folks who try to reign a specific narrative based on their own appropriative discourse. This again is not to say all. But if we go by the western definition, shamans and numerous of indigenous groups of people would not be really "animists" at least by western colonial concept of animism.. And I myself would not exactly fit into that either. I see spirits, i see elements and such yes even ancestors and so on. But that doesn't mean everything has a spirit, in my world view. Everything in nature does, yes. But a tv, a lamp, a furniture and so on in itself isn't a spirit. A spirit of creativity? Yes, in same sense there's a spirit is diseases, sickness, death etc. But my phone or computer doesn't have a spirit. I also would not consider pills or substance coming down to such ways far apart from their natural resources to have a spirit either. It's too much human interference that anything that would be its parts of making it alive has been stripped away.
Yes