spirit worship
Honoring unseen entities
Spirit worship is religious or spiritual practice centered on honoring, appeasing, or communicating with spirits—entities believed to inhabit natural objects, ancestors, or the supernatural realm.
Common in animist traditions and folk religions worldwide, it may involve offerings, rituals, or shrines: The village maintained traditions of spirit worship alongside their Buddhist practice.
- spiritual realmsNonphysical domains of existence
- ancestral spiritsSouls of deceased kin
- spiritual essenceNonphysical core of being
- speaking in tonguesEcstatic religious vocalization
- folkloreInherited cultural narratives
tree spirits · forest spirits · sacred groves · holy ground · creation myths · animism · oral traditions · trance · ceremonial drums · blood sacrifice · divination practices · death rites · nature deities · totem · healing rituals · cosmic balance · channeling · séance
- religionChristianity, Islam, beliefs, Judaism, Hinduism
- folk customsfolk dances, folk customs, burial rite, folk costumes, folk traditions
- ancient religiongods, goddesses, pantheon, deity, polytheism
- African traditionsinitiation ceremonies, naming ceremony, rites of passage, tribal chiefs, tribal initiation
- indigenous beliefsshamans, ancestor spirits, nature spirits, sacred rituals, ritual offerings
- Mongol CultureMongolia, Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, nomads
spirit worshipmonotheism
Belief in one god
Christianity · Islam · Judaism · Abrahamic faith · Zoroastrianism
spirit worshipatheism
Rejection of deities
materialism · secular humanism · physicalism · rationalism · irreligion