The Healing Power of Animism
By acknowledging the spirits around us, we recover a way of healing the West has nearly forgotten.
Humanity's oldest spiritual path, alive again
Animism is the understanding that the world is alive — that rivers, stones, animals, ancestors, and dreams are not inert things but presences with intelligence and intention. It is humanity's most ancient system of spirituality, and for most of human history it was simply how people lived.
In The Healing Power of Animism, Mark Bockley shares the animistic practices and beliefs he learned firsthand over decades of working with members of the Somé lineage of the Dagara people of West Africa. He looks closely at the role of ancestors, animals, and dreams, and explores Dagara animistic magic in depth — its divination methods, its spells, and its healing practices.
The book frames animistic consciousness as an antidote to the spiritual amnesia of the modern West: a way back to a vibrant, living tradition and to our ancestral awareness of the spiritual intelligence of Nature. By acknowledging and interacting with the spirits around us, the book argues, we can find deep healing, profound guidance, inner knowing, and genuine empowerment.
What this book offers
- An introduction to animism as a living tradition — not a relic, but a practice you can return to.
- The Dagara understanding of ancestors, and why connection to them is a source of guidance and strength.
- How animals and the natural world carry spiritual intelligence — and how to listen for it.
- The place of dreams in Dagara life as messages, maps, and medicine.
- An in-depth look at Dagara animistic magic: divination methods, spells, and healing practices.
Early words for the book
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What's between the covers
A look at how the book is organized, and a short passage to read before you buy.
Table of Contents
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- IThe World Is Alive
- IIThe Dagara and the Somé Lineage
- IIIAncestors as Guides
- IVAnimals and the Intelligence of Nature
- VDreams as Medicine
- VIDivination
- VIISpells and Healing Practices
- VIIIAnimism in the Modern West
From the book
Mark Bockley
Mark Bockley has spent decades studying and practicing the animistic traditions of the Dagara people of West Africa, working directly with members of the Somé lineage. Placeholder bio — expand with Mark's background, training, and the story of how he came to this work.
His writing brings the Dagara worldview into conversation with the questions of the modern West — not as anthropology observed from outside, but as a living practice learned from teachers and carried forward with care and permission.
The Healing Power of Animism is a new edition of his earlier work Awakening Animism in the West: The Healing Spirits of the Dagara.
Where to find it
The Healing Power of Animism
Hardcover · 288 pages · Bear & Company · ISBN 978-1-59143-575-4 · January 5, 2027