How to Deal with Spirit Animals?

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Kurios

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I seem to have gotten myself into a strange situation, as recently, I’ve been dealing with someone of native american decent, who was raised baptist, has normal Christian upbringings/philosophies for the most part, with one weird twist that I cant place within the Catholic Faith, or even find any real reference to. The concept of spirit animals. (See Iroquois Culture ).

The closest thing I could find is the The Manitou, or Guardian Spirit, theory, from the Catholic Encyclopedia. And even that isn’t clear upon it, especially within this context, because as far as I can tell, it has -0- to do with a religious belief that is rooted in nature, (partly do to their upbringing), However, they are convinced that they are linked to an animal… share traits, ect, ect, similar to someone claiming they share the soul of a particular animal. Once again, this isn’t a trait I can find either supported or denied within my reference books.

My closest assumption to this is its similarities to a Guardian Angel, but I am a hair confused by this, and of course uncertain. Mostly because normally, we relate a guardian angel to being animalistic. And I don’t like being put into a position where I cannot accurately relate the churches feelings to them. Does anyone know where I could find studies or information regarding the church and beliefs like this?

By the way, this has nothing to do with fortune-telling, witchcraft, or someone claiming to be able to see the future. Just want to clarify before this derails in that direction. In that category, the church is more than clear.
 
Is it too much to just chalk it up to the subconscious? Our brains are more powerful than they are given credit for.
 
Kurios said:
I seem to have gotten myself into a strange situation, as recently, I’ve been dealing with someone of native american decent, who was raised baptist, has normal Christian upbringings/philosophies for the most part, with one weird twist that I cant place within the Catholic Faith, or even find any real reference to. The concept of spirit animals. (See Iroquois Culture ).

The closest thing I could find is the The Manitou, or Guardian Spirit, theory, from the Catholic Encyclopedia. And even that isn’t clear upon it, especially within this context, because as far as I can tell, it has -0- to do with a religious belief that is rooted in nature, (partly do to their upbringing), However, they are convinced that they are linked to an animal… share traits, ect, ect, similar to someone claiming they share the soul of a particular animal. Once again, this isn’t a trait I can find either supported or denied within my reference books.

My closest assumption to this is its similarities to a Guardian Angel, but I am a hair confused by this, and of course uncertain. Mostly because normally, we relate a guardian angel to being animalistic. And I don’t like being put into a position where I cannot accurately relate the churches feelings to them. Does anyone know where I could find studies or information regarding the church and beliefs like this?

By the way, this has nothing to do with fortune-telling, witchcraft, or someone claiming to be able to see the future. Just want to clarify before this derails in that direction. In that category, the church is more than clear.
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Clearly a pagan, errant belief.

Adam/Eve had full dominion over all animals, …animals are w/o a soul that can relate to the creator. The domesticated animals look up to us…for food & shelter, and companionship …but, we are not a God to them. The wild animals either fear us, or wish to eat us !!
 
Believing in animal spirits?!?! I guess everyone needs an imaginary friend.😃 Try looking up the Church’s stance on animism (the belief that animals, plants, and objects have spirits) and totemism (the belief that human spirits are connected to those other spirits). I can assure you both are looked down upon by the Church. Also, it sounds like your friend has read the Golden Compass (Northern Lights) one too many times.
brb3 said:
Adam/Eve had full dominion over all animals, …animals are w/o a soul that can relate to the creator. The domesticated animals look up to us…for food & shelter, and companionship …but, we are not a God to them. The wild animals either fear us, or wish to eat us !!
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Well said. Animals do many beastly things to each other. If humans were equivalent to animals then we would be allowed to be just as nasty and violent. Humans are above animals and have a responsibility to be civil and caretakers of the world.
 
If this person is from an Algonquian or Eastern tribal background, the deal usually goes like this.

A kid hits adolescence. Their parents decide it’s time for them to go on a spirit journey. So the parents pretend like they don’t like the kid, so that the good spirits will feel sorry for the kid and want to help him/her. They send the kid out with no food or water, while secretly keeping an eye on the kid. Eventually the kid gets hungry and sleepy and has a dream or a vision or a hallucination. Whatever critter the kid dreams about is his guardian spirit – usually in the form of an animal, but not always – and the kid feels that he/she has been offered help for life. The kid scrounges up whatever strikes his eye as being a gift from the spirit that helped him/her, usually keeping it for the rest of his/her life as a holy or magical object (usually kept in a “medicine bag” or “medicine bundle”). Sometimes a name change is involved that references the spirit, and sometimes songs or poems are composed that speak obliquely about the kid’s vision. The kid heads home, and is now officially an adult.

Basically, there’s a lot of similarities to guardian angels, depending on how the tribe feels about spirits (are they to be feared or used in magic, or are they helpful spirits, or are they just neutral nature stuff? Do you have to do bad stuff or degrading worship for them to get their help, or are they more like family members who love you?). I don’t know this guy, his tribe, his seriousness or fluffiness, or anything else, so it’s hard for me to say how this fits into his scheme of things.

Missionary approaches to this stuff differs, also. I really don’t know much about how the Church deals with it these days, but there are some documents on the Vatican website about how to discern whether pagan beliefs are leading toward or away from God, and how God has revealed Himself at least in part to every pre-Christian culture.

In general, we don’t think of angels as resembling animals, mostly because they’re not animals and because the Jewish people kinda had to oppose the whole Egyptian/Middle Eastern habit of treating animals like gods. But. There are famously the Four Living Creatures in Ezekiel’s vision who looked like an eagle, a bull, a lion, and a man. There are the multiple wings and eyes of the cherubim and seraphim. There is Jesus Christ Himself appearing in the form of a Lamb and the Church appearing like a white horse in Revelation. There’s a ton of stuff like this. So we do have some points of reference.

Our animal symbolism and Native American religions’ relationship toward animal spirits is not the same thing, and you’ll have to keep your ears open to understand what’s going on. But it’s not a challenge that other Christians over the millennia haven’t faced. Good luck!
 
On a couple different occasions I’ve known Native Americans to put out food for a spirit animal. I wonder if it was on/near Christmas. I do know there was snow on the ground and there were no paw or foot prints. I shoud have paid more attention to what it was all about.

I do recall that their offering was taken and that it was a good sign. Now I wonder if it wasn’t on New Year’s.
 
just a few thoughts on the matter:

all mankind has been made in His image and has access to His grace, whether or not they have our religious understanding to make sense of it

mystical/religious experiences are universal

evil and its manifestations affect all of us

We imagine angels in the form of man. I see no reason why they could not make their presence known in the form of a wolf or a whisper in the wind.

There are sacred places in the world, whose beauty, the sense of mystery and awe that they inspire brings us close to God.
 
I think Pope Pius XII’s address to beekeepers pretty much sums up the value of animals to Catholics.

They can teach us a lot. Just yesterday I had a pretty clear vision of a bison running into the a storm. I think that is a great example God gives us. As Catholics we are called to be warriors, each one of us is meant for combat on the spiritual level and possibly other level of combat whether it be physical or intellectual or in the trench and so on.

Animals do have souls though, just to clear that up. Not the same soul as humans, it is lesser.
 
Aloysium said:
We imagine angels in the form of man. I see no reason why they could not make their presence known in the form of a wolf or a whisper in the wind.

There are sacred places in the world, whose beauty, the sense of mystery and awe that they inspire brings us close to God.
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brb3 said:
Clearly a pagan, errant belief.

Adam/Eve had full dominion over all animals, …animals are w/o a soul that can relate to the creator. The domesticated animals look up to us…for food & shelter, and companionship …but, we are not a God to them. The wild animals either fear us, or wish to eat us !!
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I disagree. I believe that animals have a soul. How do you explain that elephants, no matter where they wandered in the meantime, find back to the “graveyard” where a family member died?
 
504Katrin said:
I disagree. I believe that animals have a soul. How do you explain that elephants, no matter where they wandered in the meantime, find back to the “graveyard” where a family member died?
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Memory 😉
 
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