History and theory of religions. Basic forms of mythological and religious worldview (the most important)

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History and theory of religions. Basic forms of mythological and religious worldview (the most important)

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10. The main forms of mythological and religious worldview

The common source of various tribal beliefs was the universal cult of the Mother Goddess. It was based on the cult of nature. However, primitive religion is not limited to the worship of natural forces.

Non-theistic beliefs and rites of primitive antiquity are sometimes called pre-religion.

In the history of religions and in cultural studies, several main classes of religious forms are distinguished - animism, totemism, fetishism, shamanism, polytheism, ancient pantheism. However, these are not stages, not historical stages in the development of religion. Having arisen in the primitive communal world, they could coexist in the religious ideas of one tribe (for example, animism and totemism) and, with certain changes, were passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Polytheistic and pantheistic religions are practiced in many countries of the modern world.

Animism (from Latin anima, animus - soul, spirit) is a belief in the existence of souls and spirits. Primitive man animated the whole world around him. Rivers and stones, plants and animals, sun and wind, spinning wheel and knife, sleep and illness, share and lack of share, life and death - everything had a soul, a will, the ability to act, harm or help a person. According to primitive ideas, spirits lived in the invisible other world, but penetrated into the visible world of people. Worship and magic were supposed to help people somehow get along with the spirits - propitiate them or outsmart them. There are elements of animism in any religion.

Totemism is the belief of a tribe in its kinship with a plant or animal (less often with a natural phenomenon or object). In the language of the Ojivbey Indian tribe, the word totem means "his kind." The totem was conceived as a real ancestor, the tribe bore his name, worshiped him (if the totemic animal or plant really existed) or him and his imagination. Fetishism (from the French fetiche - idol, talisman) - inanimate objects (for example, a feather of a totem bird or an oak burned in a thunderstorm, or a fang of a tiger killed in a hunt, etc.), which, according to believers, have supernatural properties. Fetishes (sacred objects) accompanied the entire life of primitive man.

The phenomenon of shamanism is sometimes seen as the development of an individual principle in the religious practice of the ancients. A person with "special mystical and occult talent" stands out from the group of fellow tribesmen, who, in the ecstasy of trance, became a clairvoyant and medium, an intermediary between spirits and people.

All manifestations of belief in the supernatural can be called a fideistic attitude towards the world, or fideism.

Author: Pankin S.F.

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