Spiritualization

According to max Muller, the spiritualization and then deification of natural phenomena were promoted by the figurative expressions that the savage applied to these phenomena. Amazed by their greatness and mystery, he began to apply to them the predicates peculiar to living beings, such as – “immortal” (amarts), “shining” (Devas), “living” (Asuras). And such names for the savage received a very real and immediate meaning, in consequence of which he began to look at the very phenomena and objects of nature as living, active and feeling beings, similar to man, but towering over him with their power. By such picturesque expressions, the savage easily transformed the various relations between the phenomena of nature into poetic myths, which to him did not seem at all a figment of the imagination, but expressed an actual fact. Speaking, for example, of such a phenomenon as the disappearance of the dew appearing at dawn from the rays of the sun, and giving his speech poetic, figurative expressions, the savage easily creates a kind of myth that the pearl nymph Dew, born of the goddess Zareyu, melts from love for the radiant God Sun.

Once formed the view of the natural phenomena of nature as living beings, related to man or with favor, or with hostility, the savage must naturally have a desire to enter into communication with them, in order to gain their favor. To appease these powerful beings he thought by the same means that he used in ordinary life to gain the favor of strong and necessary people; thus, the religious cult was introduced the same treats in the form of victims, the same signs of submission, the same pleasures and entertainment that take place in the human community.

Thus arose, according to the proponents of the naturalistic theory, the religious veneration of the deified great phenomena of nature. But some scientists, defending the same theory, consider the subject of the first religious worship small phenomena of nature, which include trees, mountains, groves, rivers, animals, etc. so thinks the researcher of the religions of uncultured peoples Reville and other French scientists, and partly also Max Muller; the latter says that “man from the deification of semi-tangible objects (mountains, rivers, land, sea, etc.). as a demi-deity, 4 he went on to deify intangible objects (the sky, the stars, the dawn, etc.), which became for him deities in the true meaning of this word.” To the worship of the small phenomena of nature primitive man came as if in the same way as he came to the worship of the great phenomena.