Spirit moves through every form and shape, leaving nothing untouched by it. Mind is carried by the substance of spirit and life emerges from the same spirit, so that everything, everywhere can be called conscious and alive.
The Great Spirit
The fundamental and foundational substance from which everything emerges and to which everything returns can be called Spirit. There may indeed be even higher states such as the Monad, but that is for the mystics and philosophers to ponder.
As magicians we are primarily concerned with practical matters of effective magic so our contemplative philosophical inquiries don’t need to solve every existential puzzle. In terms of the phenomenal reality, we can say the eternal and formless substance of Spirit, which some call Void, Quintessence, or other names is the primal field that produces, sustains, then re-absorbs and recycles life.
Spirit in the Continuum of Creation
This is the essence of birth, life, death, and reincarnation. It is also the cycle of being represented by the Triple God and Triple Goddess of Neo Paganism or the Trimurti and Tridevi of Hinduism.
The cycle of being can be represented as creation, preservation, destruction, and regeneration which restarts the sequence. This aptly describes all we know as reality. Spirit permeates this eternal motion as the unchanging and ever-present, formless form beneath the phenomenal shape.
Everything is Alive
It is this foundational substance, according to the sages of both the east and west throughout history, that provides the unity of the All. In the material world wherein we have our being, this axiom manifests as the intelligent universe or Animus Mundi wherein all things are alive, even seemingly inanimate objects or inert material. This expansion of “life” beyond the biological spectrum can be used to account for spiritual or extradimensional beings and for the Principle of Correspondence, among other ideas.
Concepts adjacent to or nested within the broader Principle of Animism include the Celtic Forsa Betha, Indian Prana, Chinese chi, Japanese ki, and Egyptian Neter. Each of these terms represent variations of the overall notion that spirit or life flow through all things.
The Force is With Us
For examples, both Forsa Betha and Prana refer to the vital energy or life force that is carried by and channeled through the breath. This vital force is said to be housed by and transmitted through the ether, the metaphysical building block of physical reality.
Chi designates the unseen, subtle energy that physical energy emerges from and that permeates physical reality. Ki takes this a step further and adds the focused mind or organizing force of intention.
A Child’s Intuition
When we are very young animism is intuitively obvious to us. Surely you had stuffed animals and other toys you treated as living beings. It just felt correct to regard these objects as creatures with feelings.
In adulthood we often have vehicles, tools, or other possessions we feel a strong bond with. We may even talk to or name these things.
More than silly notions these are glimpses into the ideology of our ancestors who believed everything around them had a life and consciousness of some sort. Ask any magician who works with crystals or stones if they think their minerals are alive and they will almost certainly return a resounding yes to your inquiry.
In fact, if you aren’t already studying mineral magic, I recommend it as probably the best window into animism. Start with whatever crystal or stone came to mind as you read the last sentence, for already the spirit in the minerals calls out, a witness to the testimony of the animist philosophy.