I’m not sure what scholars you have in mind. If you mean scholars of comparative religion, they’ve not ignored or overlooked it, they’ve merely allowed themselves to go on believing what they were taught, that it’s just a bunch of “primitive” superstitious nonsense. For them, “real” religions are OUR religions. What else would you expect?

In effect, I have redefined animism for the Taker world, much in the way that Paul redefined Christianity for the Roman world. Paul didn’t think he was falsifying it, he felt he was re-seeing it in a way that would reveal its profoundest truths. No one (to my knowledge) has ever described the animist vision as I’ve done in The Story Of B. Animists among Leaver peoples have no need to do such a thing.

ID: 383
posted:
updated: 13 Jan 1999