animatism
ani·ma·tism
noun
1.
the attribution of consciousness and personality to natural phenomena such as thunderstorms and earthquakes and to objects such as plants and stones
Origin
From animate + -ism. Originally coined by British anthropologist Robert Marett to refer to "a belief in a generalized, impersonal power over which people have some measure of control".
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.