Spirit Animals – Genuine or Power Play?… My Observations On A Trendy Topic…

Are Spirit Animals A Genuine Concept?… Or Are We Simply Making Another Spiritual Power Play?… My Thoughts On Our Flawed Bias System!!!

It is no secret that the spiritual and magickal communities have a system that is deeply flawed as I have touched upon several times in my work. Often have I pointed out fallacies which are more often than not debunked with a little bit of logic and closer inspection. One of the dominating factors that I believe cause this, is our own bias toward our community (which in all honesty is a natural thing). There is a bias toward more or less anyone who wants to have themselves validated by others. I truly believe that there are many people in our community who wish reality was a certain way so much so that they would rather find away to justify believing that reality exists, rather than accepting what actually is.

Many have abandoned logic, common sense and basic science because it is a conflict to the fantasy they wish they could be in. Here in lies our flawed system. Instead of questioning these fancy concepts even when a logical argument arises many tend to look the other way, the typical see no evil so that they don’t have to change their own flawed ways. Its far easier to live a lie than to admit being wrong and then changing the mistakes that were made. This is of course a broad opening to the specific topic I want to address today. That topic is spirit animals.

Most if not everyone in our community will know this very common and somewhat trendy concept. It’s a popular thing to have a spirit animal and to figure out what your animal is. However, here is where I pose my first question. Is this a genuine and real concept? Or is this being used as a power play? Let me first say that spirit animals (and variations such as power animals) do have some legitimate history to be taken into consideration. Animists and shamans have been using this idea of our relation to animals for a long time. Yet, history does not always mean useful. In our community I have observed the telling feature that this concept is simply a masked validation for our fantasy world.

There are common choices for spirit animals (and I emphasise the word choice here) and even more common choices. Wolf, bear, lion, as my first examples turn up frequently. Yet things like, cockroach, dung beetle and garden worms never show up. These things are still animals. Now ok animals and bugs do have a clear distinction, but what about the rat? Or the turtle? The seagull or pigeon? It is clear there that the popular kids get picked first. We have hundreds of wolf spirit animals but not a single squirrel. Herein lies the bias. The majority are choosing their animal because it validates their own conceptions of themselves. It’s a romanticism that most don’t even realize they have. Its empowering to pick a bear or wolf but degrading to choose a worm or cockroach, as such we avoid the latter. Funny how even we spiritually evolved people still have this hint of looking down on lesser animals like the bugs as well as people in our spiritual conquest. Now let my say next that I realize not every person is subject to this, but I am talking generally.

It is my belief that the animal doesn’t choose us as many spiritualists believe, but rather we choose them. We pick these animals because of many potential reasons. For the typical average joe this is most likely a power play, pick an animal that makes you cool and superior. For others it can be simply feeling like you have something in relation. It’s not uncommon for us humans to relate certain traits to animals and then see patterns in the likeness ourselves. However, this is based upon our own bias and romanticism’s which is where the issue lies. The third is experiencing some kind of affinity toward a certain species of animal which again falls to bias. Often psychological concepts such as pareidolia (seeing patterns in randomness which does also account for this concept), Ideomotor and placebo end up debunking spiritual concept.

Now let me now say that in all honesty I have no issue with this concept and I myself have had spirit animals. But with all my work I try to take a non-personal approach and look at things from a Birdseye view. This concept doesn’t do much harm for the majority however, I think we should speak our observations more so when we are searching for truth and evolution. I think that spirit animals as a concept is simply our own minds trying to relate to the world around us and as things get popular and trendy they get abused and misinterpreted. This observation however, I think it is an important one so I want your thoughts on this observation?