The original, unbastardized meaning of the term “familiar spirit” seems to be pretty close to what pagans use the term “spirit animal” to mean nowadays.

I will henceforth recommend the term to abusers of the word “totem” in place of “spirit animal” (which I was suggesting before) unless anyone can put forth any reasonable objections.  Does anyone have any?

Edit: To make things clearer, I am NOT suggesting that anyone use the word “totem.”  It has a specific meaning and comes from a specific Ojibwe term.  I am considering suggesting that people use “familiar spirit” IN PLACE OF “totem” or “spirit animal.”

nothanksmister:

I’ve been doing a lot of research on spirit animals and spirit animal meditations, and as if it was fate, I met this woman who got on the subject of spirit animals and she was talking about how there is a different spirit animal for each chakra and that the heart chakra animal is the easiest to discover but that there are 6 others as well.  I found this to be super interesting but I’ve never heard of it before!  I was wondering if anyone else knew anything about this?

I’d never heard of this before so I looked it up.  Basically, it appears to be yet another case of privileged white people stealing and mixing up stuff from cultures they really don’t understand but know sounds cool so they can sell a product to other privileged white people with more money than brains.