Folklore notions of soul as an animal: folklore Christianity as the counterpoint to the data of christianity

Abstract

Folklore notions of soul as an animal: folklore Christianity as the counterpoint to the doxa of Christianity This paper is the continuation of my article “The Soul as a Post-Mortal Bird: the Southern/Slavic Folklore Notion of the Bird-Soul and/or the Soul-Bird”, presented at the conference Body, Soul, Spirits and Supernatural Communication (organizer: Éva Pócs) in 2012. It is obvious that Christian doxa was extremely successful in erasing the concept in question, of the post-mortal soul, as a bird and/or about the soul as an animal in general: as Christianity reinforced in its anthropocentric worldview that animals, ostensibly, have no souls at all. On that note, Bruce M. Hood’s (2010) ironical comment, can be added in the case the Latin term for the animal kingdom (Lat. animalia) is not at all appropriate, as it derives from the word anima (soul). The animalisation of the soul (zoopsychonavigations) obviously bothered the Church. As Mirjam Mencej (1995) points out in her conclusion in the article, that K. Moszyński drew attention to the linguistic similarity (in Slavic languages) between the Latin words anima and animalis, and that animals, in his opinion, should be described as the bearers of life. The aforementioned link is also preserved by some authors in the field of analytical psychology. Following the above, prominent zoo-ethicists are highlighted, the philosophers within the animal rights movement. Those being Tom Regan (2004), who points out that Hinduism and numerous indigenous American traditions believe that animals have souls, but also the Christian theologians (e.g. John Wesley) find biblical data on the animals soul.