"Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life"
is the religious belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words—as animated and alive" -wiki
Everything has a spirit, but this is quite different from, for example polytheistic beliefs where personified gods and demigods rule all things. Instead of a personified "river god" the river itself has a spirit, but it is a river spirit, not some human like deity. Animism generally does not put humans at the center of everything with human like gods controlling the world. Instead we are just one of the many spirits in world, each expressing the unique form of their type.
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