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Anima mundi (Latin) is the world soul, a pure ethereal spirit, which was proclaimed by some ancient philosophers to be diffused throughout all nature. It was thought to animate all matter in the same sense in which the soul was thought to animate the human.
Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.
The idea originated with Plato and it also features in systems of eastern philosophy in the Brahman-Atman of Hinduism. Subsequently the Stoics believed it to be the only vital force in the universe.
Similar concepts were held by hermetic philosophers like Paracelsus, and by Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and later by Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854).
It has been elaborated since the 1960s by Gaia theorists such as James Lovelock.
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- This page was last modified on 25 September 2008, at 04:11.
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