Animism is not a specific religion. It is a generic name for thousands of very different religions, cults and beliefs. What makes all of them ‘animist’ is this common approach to the world and to man’s place in it. Saying that ancient foragers were probably animists is like saying that premodern agriculturists were mostly theists. Theism (from ‘theos’, ‘god’ in Greek) is the view that the universal order is based on a hierarc