ancientism

Updated: May 3, 2025

Then all of the inferior deities whose characters are pure become ministering angels, and the inferior deities whose characters are evil become devils, and the differentiation of good and evil is perfected in the gulf between heaven and hell. In all this time from zoötheism to monotheism, ancientism becomes more ancient, and the times and dynasties are multiplied.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56

Thus we see that out of mythologic philosophy, as branches of the great tree itself, there grow ancientism, theistic society, spiritism, thaumaturgics, mythic tales, and religion. I shall now give a summary characterization of zoötheism, then call attention to some of the relics of hecastotheism found therein, and proceed with a brief statement of the higher stages of theism.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56

Ancientism plays an important part in this zoötheism. It is not the animals of to-day whom the Indians worship, but their progenitors their prototypes. The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but that wolf's ancestor the first of the line was a god.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56

In youth activity is joy; in old age activity is pain. So wonder, then, that old age loves youth, or that to-day loves yesterday, for the instinct is born of the inherited experiences of mankind. But there is yet another and more potent reason for ancientism. That tale is the most wonderful that has been most repeated, for the breath of speech is the fertilizer of story.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56

Colonel Craddock, a retired lawyer of the local bar at Pineville, and eighty-three years old, published a statement in opposition to Saylor's candidacy. He said in part; "Though an old man I am not a worshiper of ancientism. I think I can give to present-day men credit where credit is due.

Mathew Joseph Holt - Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight

So ancientism is developed from accumulated life-experiences; by the growth of story in repeated narration; by the steadily increasing power of affirmatization, and by respect for the authority upon which the institutions of society are based; all accumulating as they come down the generations. Theistic Society.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56

But in order to do this clearly, certain outgrowths from mythologic philosophy must be explained certain theories and practices that necessarily result from, this philosophy, and that are intricately woven into the institutions of mankind. Ancientism. The first I denominate ancientism. Yesterday was better than to-day. The ancients were wiser that we.

John Wesley Powell - Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56