Early forms of religion: formation factors, types and interesting facts

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

In today's world, the achievements of scientific and technological progress are surprisingly combined with various creeds that make up several independent directions. In addition to the four main world religions - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism - there are countless followers of other faiths among the world's population. In this article, we will try to find out which early forms of religion served as the basis for the formation of modern spiritual culture.

Religion as a special form of understanding the world

Before starting a conversation about the name of an early form of religion, let's dwell on the meaning of this term, one way or another related to the life of all peoples of the world. The word "religion" comes from the Latin verb religare, which means "to connect", "to bind". In this case, it implies the establishment of a person’s connection with some higher forces that guide his life.

Modern historians say with full confidence that throughout the history of mankind there was not a single people who did not know religion. She ishas always been a special form of understanding the world, which was based on belief in supernatural forces. At the same time, the followers of each religion established for themselves a certain type of behavior, cult actions and moral norms. Their organized worship of higher powers led to the creation of religious communities and churches.

The origin of religious beliefs

About the origin of the early forms of religion and the ways of their further development in the scientific world, many judgments were expressed, and the authors of the put forward hypotheses sometimes took diametrically opposed positions. For example, a number of researchers, among whom one can name the outstanding American philosopher of the 19th century W. James, were of the opinion that religious beliefs are an innate phenomenon and are based on the action of supernatural forces.

At the same time, his colleague from Germany, L. Feuerbach, half a century before, argued that the world of the gods was created by people themselves and is a reflection of their real existence. The Austrian psychoanalyst Z. Freud saw in religion a mass neurosis generated by some kind of unconscious drives. And finally, supporters of Marxist philosophy claimed that the basis of any faith is the inability to find a rational explanation for natural phenomena and an attempt to see the action of supernatural forces in them.

Totemism is an early form of religion

Researchers have no consensus on how mystical ideas were born among people. However, according to data obtained during archaeological excavations, early formsReligions and the emergence of concepts related to supernatural forces are usually attributed to the 10th millennium BC. e. The beliefs of people of that ancient era can be divided into several forms with a certain degree of conditionality, one of which (apparently, the initial one) is totemism.

The term denoting this religious direction, in the language of the Algonquins - representatives of one of the Indian tribes - means "his kind", that is, indicates a certain relationship, in this case with various forms of animals and plants, as well as some mythical creatures, which are objects of worship and are called "totem".

Variety of forms of totemism

Totemism, which originated many millennia ago, has partly survived to this day among representatives of individual tribes of Central Africa, Australia and South America. His followers give supernatural powers not only to specific material objects, but even natural phenomena such as wind, rain, sun, water, thunder, etc.

However, most often representatives of the animal or plant world, as well as their individual parts, such as the stomach of a piglet, the head of a turtle or the roots of maize, become objects of worship. In numerous communities it is not uncommon to observe the worship of a variety of objects. For example, the North American Ojibwa tribe includes 23 independent clans, and each of them has its own totem. If some make sacrifices to a bear, then others bow before a jerboa hole or dance with a tambourineat the first light of dawn.

Animation of the surrounding world

Animism, which is, in fact, one of its varieties, is very similar to totemism. The name of this direction comes from the Latin word animus, which means "spirit" or "soul". Followers of animism, whose history also dates back to the 10th millennium BC. e., endowed with a living soul all the objects surrounding them and even natural phenomena. The term "animism" was coined by the English culturologist Edward Taflare, who at the beginning of the 20th century proclaimed the belief in spirits separated from the body as the beginning of the emergence of religion in the modern sense of the word.

It is known that most ancient religions (including animism) are characterized by the so-called anthropomorphism - the tendency to attribute human traits and properties to objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. In accordance with this, all of them were personified (represented in the form of actors) and endowed with their own will, as well as the ability to implement it. An important feature of animism was that spirits were not opposed to those objects and phenomena in which they were contained, but were one with them. It was believed that the soul of an object dies with the destruction of its container.

Where is the human soul hidden?

This early form of religion laid the foundation for the idea of the human soul, which then went through a long path of development and became the basis of most modern creeds. However, for our distant ancestors, it was not yet immortal and was embodied innatural life processes of the body, such as breathing.

The seat of the human soul was considered to be various organs of the body, but most often it was the head and heart. Only much later, the corporeal soul, which perishes along with its owner, was replaced by the concept of some kind of immortal substance that, after the death of a person, can either move to a new owner (perform reincarnation) or go to the afterlife.

Worship of inanimate objects

Continuing the conversation about the origin of mystical ideas among people, one cannot help but recall another early form of religion - fetishism. Under this term, which came to us from the French language, it is customary to understand the worship of inanimate objects - "fetishes", endowed with supernatural properties. It has partly survived to this day, realized in the form of veneration of the relics of saints, icons and various kinds of relics.

This early form of object-worshipping religion has much in common with totemism and animism discussed above, since in all three cases the fate of people is made dependent on the will of certain forces contained in a wide variety of objects. The concept of fetishism was introduced into European science in the middle of the 18th century by the Dutch researcher V. Bosman, although the first mention of representatives of this religious trend appeared three centuries earlier and belongs to Portuguese sailors who visited the shores of West Africa.

The appearance of amulets

It is known that in the beginning, any object that somehow struck the imagination of a person could become a fetish: a piece of wood, a stone of a bizarre shape or a sea shell. The same role was sometimes assigned to certain parts of the bodies of animals, for example, fangs, claws, ribs, etc. Only a little later, man-made objects of worship made of stone, bone, wood and other workable materials joined these natural “shrines”. So all kinds of amulets and amulets appeared.

The level of miraculous power contained in a particular fetish was determined by practical means. For example, if on some day the hunter was lucky, then the wolf's teeth hanging around his neck were attributed magical properties. If, after some time, he returned home empty-handed, then this meant that his amulet had lost its power and it was necessary to acquire a new one.

Souls of ancestors imprisoned in idols

An important impetus to the further development of an early form of religion - fetishism - was the spread of the cult of ancestors in primitive society. At this stage in the history of mankind, rituals that included the worship of deceased relatives entered the religious life of many peoples of the world. Various idols were widely used - primitive human figurines made of clay, stone or wood, each of which, according to primitive people, contained the soul of one of the members of their kind.

It is generally accepted that early formsreligions - totemism, animism and fetishism - are the foundation on which all modern creeds and world spiritual culture as a whole were subsequently built. According to most researchers, it was the fetishization of nature that at a certain stage gave impetus to philosophical thought and led to the development of art.

Mediator between gods and people

In addition to the early forms of religion, briefly described above, one more direction should be mentioned, which was the result of their further development and has survived to this day, having undergone only minor changes. This is shamanism, which arose, according to scientists, at the turn of the 6th and 5th millennium BC. e., during the development of the primitive communal system.

The basic concept of shamanism is that between people and otherworldly forces that control the fate of the world, there must be intermediaries capable of directing supernatural energy in the desired direction. It is curious that the candidates for the role of these intermediary shamans were chosen not by people, but by the spirits themselves, who, naturally, knew better which of the members of the tribe was worthy of such a high honor.

It was believed that the chosen one - another shaman who took the place of his deceased or overly decrepit predecessor - became, as it were, "re-created" and endowed with miraculous powers that helped him in the future to communicate directly with the inhabitants of another world and incline them to help to their compatriots. To this end, he regularly performed certain ritual actions. With the spirits themselves, he had, meanwhile, very complicatedrelations, since he could not force them to perform the desired actions, and only sought their favor.

Interesting facts about shamanism

Shamanism is the most preserved early form of religion to this day. His followers can be found in all parts of the world, although each region has its own characteristics. For example, the shamans of South America (machi) specialize mainly in the treatment of various serious diseases and annually heal the afflicted during public rituals.

Bolivian shamans, called "bara", are very good at predicting the future and make predictions with amazing accuracy, even regarding the results of football matches and presidential elections.

In South Korea, shamanism is exclusively the prerogative of women. It is believed that only they are able to find an approach to the spirits and achieve what they want from them. However, the right to this activity is inherited and is the lot of only a limited number of Korean women.