--- title: What is existentialism, and how does it differ from an animist view of meaning? description: "Existentialism is a twentieth-century movement in philosophy, best known through Jean-Paul Sartre, which holds that human beings have no given nature or purpose, that we exist first and then make ourselves, and our lives, through our choices, in a universe…" url: "https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/wiki/what-is-existentialism-and-how-does-it-differ-from-an-animist-view-of-meaning/" updated: "2026-11-10" category: People tags: - Albert Camus - authenticity - awe - bad faith - existence precedes essence - existential therapy - "existential-humanistic therapy" - existentialism - freedom - Irvin Yalom - "Jean-Paul Sartre" - Kirk Schneider - Martin Heidegger - meaning of life - Mother Earth - Simone de Beauvoir - Søren Kierkegaard - soul - the other Peoples - the Story of Human - ultimate concerns --- # What is existentialism, and how does it differ from an animist view of meaning? Existentialism is a twentieth-century movement in philosophy, best known through Jean-Paul Sartre, which holds that human beings have no given nature or purpose, that we exist first and then make ourselves, and our lives, through our choices, in a universe that offers no meaning of its own. The animist view turns this round. In animism the world is alive and full of beings who already live their meaning, and the meaning of a human life is not invented but found, in growing into what Mother Earth**Mother Earth.** The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: "The Earth is indeed our Mother." [More about this](/wiki/who-is-mother-earth/) intended us to be, in relationship with the rest of the living world. ## What is existentialism? A way of doing philosophy that starts from the lived situation of a particular person, here and now, facing choices, anxiety and death, rather than from abstract systems. Its roots are usually traced to the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard in the nineteenth century, and its themes run through [Friedrich Nietzsche](/wiki/what-did-friedrich-nietzsche-teach-about-power-and-about-amor-fati/) and Martin Heidegger. It became a movement, and a name, in France after the Second World War, with [Jean-Paul Sartre](/wiki/what-did-jean-paul-sartre-teach-about-the-gaze-and-bad-faith/), [Simone de Beauvoir](/wiki/what-did-simone-de-beauvoir-teach-about-othering-and-ambiguity/) and others. Albert Camus is often counted among them, though he himself denied being an existentialist.^[1](#note-1) The central idea is Sartre's formula that "existence comes before essence". A paper-knife, his example, is made by a craftsman who already has its purpose in mind, so for the knife the essence comes first. If there is no God who designed human beings, there is no blueprint for us either. We turn up in the world first, and only afterwards define ourselves. "Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself."^[2](#note-2) 1. Ronald Aronson, "Albert Camus", *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (2021). 2. Jean-Paul Sartre, *Existentialism is a Humanism* (lecture given in Paris in 1945, published 1946), translated by Philip Mairet. ## What does existentialism say about meaning? That it is made, not found. For Sartre, life "is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of", and its value is nothing else but the sense you choose. With no designer and no given nature, we are wholly responsible for what we become, which is why man, for Sartre, "is condemned to be free."^[3](#note-3) Freedom brings anxiety, and the temptation is to flee it, by pretending that our roles, our upbringing or our circumstances decide for us. Sartre called that flight bad faith, and its opposite, owning one's freedom and choices, authenticity. Other existentialists put the weight differently. Kierkegaard stressed the leap of faith, Heidegger the call back**Call-back.** The change in the drumbeat that signals the return at the end of a journey: back through the route you came, into the physical body, grounded. [More about this](/wiki/what-is-the-call-back/) from drifting along with how 'they' live, and Camus the absurd clash between our hunger for meaning and a silent world. What they share is the conviction that meaning is not handed to us by the universe. See [Who was Martin Heidegger?](/wiki/who-was-martin-heidegger-and-what-did-he-mean-by-being/) and [What did Albert Camus teach about revolt, limits and false consolation?](/wiki/what-did-albert-camus-teach-about-revolt-limits-and-false-consolation/) 1. Jean-Paul Sartre, *Existentialism is a Humanism*, translated by Philip Mairet. ## What is existential therapy? The meeting of these ideas with psychotherapy. Its best-known figures include [Viktor Frankl](/wiki/who-was-viktor-frankl/), Rollo May and Irvin Yalom. Yalom named four ultimate concerns of human life: death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. They help a person face these directly, instead of being driven by the ways they avoid them.^[4](#note-4) In the existential-humanistic school taught by Kirk Schneider and Orah Krug, the work aims at a rediscovery of meaning and awe, awe being "the humility and wonder or sense of adventure toward all that exists."^[5](#note-5) See [What is awe, and why is it good for us?](/wiki/what-is-awe-and-why-is-it-good-for-us/) and [What can Viktor Frankl's logotherapy offer shamanic work?](/wiki/what-can-viktor-frankls-logotherapy-offer-shamanic-work/) 1. Artem Kudelia, *Existential Therapy*, chapter on Irvin Yalom. 2. Orah T. Krug and Kirk J. Schneider, *Existential-Humanistic Therapy*, 2nd edition (American Psychological Association, 2017), Appendix D, p. 147. ## How does the animist view of meaning differ? At the root. Existentialism begins from a world with no meaning in it, and a lonely human being who must supply one. Animism begins from a world that is alive and conscious through and through, everything made of Spirit and so everything conscious, stones and rivers as much as people.^[6](#note-6) In such a world, humans are not the only beings with a stake in meaning; they are surrounded by beings who already live it. The animist answer to the question of life's meaning is "to be what Mother Earth intended you to be". Rocks, trees and cats know exactly that, which is why shamans say the other Peoples are wiser than humans. What makes humans unique is not that we alone can ask the question, but that we forget how we are meant to live. We forget the Story of Human given to us by Mother Earth and invent human-made stories in its place, some close to that Story, some plain terrible.^[7](#note-7) The existentialist picture of a self that must invent its own meaning is a close description of what it is like to have forgotten that Story. 1. Paul Francis, [*The Shamanic Journey*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/the-shamanic-journey/), Chapter Two, "What Is 'Spirit'?". 2. Paul Francis, [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/), Chapter Eight, "Stories about the Meaning of Life". ## Is there a human nature after all? In Therapeutic Shamanism, yes, though not the fixed design Sartre was rejecting. Each person has a Lower-World**Lower-World.** The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. [Read the full answer](/wiki/what-is-the-lower-world/) Soul, their truest self, wild, free and part of nature, which is both who they truly are and the blueprint for what they are meant to grow into. All beings have a template of this kind, a seed of what they could become and a drive to grow into it, which [Carl Rogers](/wiki/who-was-carl-rogers-and-why-does-he-matter-to-therapeutic-shamanism/) called the actualising tendency**Actualising tendency.** Carl Rogers's term for the drive in every living thing to grow into the best version of what it is meant to be. In animist terms, this is the drive of the Lower-World Soul. [More about this](/wiki/what-is-the-actualising-tendency/). Whether the seed grows depends on conditions too, and a healthy seed in poor soil becomes a sickly plant, still trying to be the best it can.^[8](#note-8) So freedom matters in both views, but it plays a different part in each. For Sartre, freedom creates the self out of nothing. In Therapeutic Shamanism the self is discovered, and freedom lies in choosing whether to do the work of finding it and growing into it, or to live and die inside the stories the culture supplies. Most people in modern societies, which are generally not designed to help anyone grow into who they are, never come to know who they really are.^[8](#note-8) See [What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?](/wiki/what-are-soul-spirit-the-middle-world-self-and-the-body/) 1. Paul Francis, [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/), Chapter One, "Our Lost Human Soul". ## Is meaning found alone, or in relationship? In animism, in relationship. The existentialist stands alone before the choice; the animist stands among kin. For hunter-gatherers, the other Peoples were the beings who showed humans how to live and how to be human.^[9](#note-9) Growing into who we are meant to be means taking a unique and sacred place in the web of life,^[10](#note-10) and in doing so helping the Earth herself become whole.^[11](#note-11) 1. Paul Francis, [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/), Chapter One, "Showing Some Humility". 2. Paul Francis, [*Rewilding Yourself*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/rewilding-yourself/), Chapter Two, "A Balanced Spiritual Practice". 3. Paul Francis, [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/), Chapter Four, "Growing into What You Were Meant to Be". ## Where do the two views meet? In several places. Both refuse to take meaning on authority. Existentialism rejects living by roles handed down by others; animist shamanism is the direct, personal experience of Spirit and requires no leap of faith, no believing what scriptures say or what a priest teaches.^[12](#note-12) Both ask people to face their own mortality, and in Therapeutic Shamanism a true Elder**Elder (True Elder).** The rarer stage beyond Adulthood. Adults decide; Elders advise. [More about this](/wiki/what-is-a-true-elder/) is someone willing to face their own mortality.^[13](#note-13) Both see that a great many people drift through life without ever becoming themselves. And existential therapy's emphasis on presence and on the rediscovery of awe sits close to the shamanic sense of a world that calls for wonder. Where they part is over the world itself. For the existentialists the world offers no meaning of its own; for the animist it is full of persons, human and other-than-human. The deep ache many people feel, the hole they try to fill with consumer goods, work and distraction, is a wound caused by separation, by losing the experience of being part of an interconnected whole, and it begins to heal in relationship with the living world, not in a more heroic act of solitary choosing.^[14](#note-14) See [What does animism say about the meaning of life?](/wiki/what-does-animism-say-about-the-meaning-of-life/) 1. Paul Francis, [*The Shamanic Journey*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/the-shamanic-journey/), Chapter Two, "The Nature of Shamanic Reality". 2. Paul Francis, [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/), Chapter Six, "The Qualities of a True Elder". 3. Paul Francis, [*The Shamanic Journey*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/the-shamanic-journey/), Chapter Three, "The Lower-World". - [What does animism say about the meaning of life?](/wiki/what-does-animism-say-about-the-meaning-of-life/) - [What did Albert Camus teach about revolt, limits and false consolation?](/wiki/what-did-albert-camus-teach-about-revolt-limits-and-false-consolation/) - [Who was Viktor Frankl?](/wiki/who-was-viktor-frankl/) - [What can shamanism offer logotherapy and the search for meaning?](/wiki/what-can-shamanism-offer-logotherapy-and-the-search-for-meaning/) - [What is a calling?](/wiki/what-is-a-calling/) - [Who was Martin Heidegger, and what did he mean by "being"?](/wiki/who-was-martin-heidegger-and-what-did-he-mean-by-being/) - [*Finding Your Deep Soul*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/finding-your-deep-soul/) (Chapter One, our lost human Soul; Chapter Four, growing into what you were meant to be; Chapter Eight, stories about the meaning of life) - [*The Shamanic Journey*](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/book/the-shamanic-journey/) (Chapter Two, the nature of shamanic reality) - [all courses](https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/shamanic-courses/)