Despite the uncountable worldview possibilities, all the worldview variations from whatever country, philosophy, or religion can be boiled down to just a few basic variations... If you can master these six—and it’s easy to do—you’ll be able to go anywhere in the wild world and quickly know the general worldview you’re dealing with.

As best as the ancients could tell, the world was full of moody, capricious spirits who could quickly ruin your life. Religion—sometimes worshiping and hoping for the best, sometimes sacrificing just to get the gods off your back—was what people used to cope. This Haunted Worldview urges people to try to get in touch with spiritual powers, whoever they are, including the departed dead, to help them get the upper hand in life, that is in order for people to be able to survive in their harsh and unpredictable world.  

Two Basic Beliefs of the Haunted Worldview:

• All things around us (rocks, hills, rivers, trees, animals, weather, sun, moon, etc.) are animated by spirit beings.

• There are gods or spirits, some of whom have major powers, who at any time might appear in the world. 

View of the Supernatural: 

There is a spirit world that must be dealt with or appeased.

Religions and belief systems that embody this worldview: 

• Polytheism 

• Animism

• Shamanism

• Spiritism

• Paganism

• Neopaganism

Who held to this worldview?

• Greek and Roman mythology

• the Gilgamesh Epic

• the Egyptian Book of the Dead

• African pre-Islamic or pre-Christian tribal religions

• the Aztecs, Mayas, and other pre-Columbian peoples

• the Australian aborigines

• the religions in Europe and Asia before European expansion

• For modern expressions, think Wicca, neopaganism, and witchcraft (spells and incantations to spirits to achieve certain effects)

Here are some characteristic sayings or attitudes connected to the Haunted Worldview:

• It doesn’t matter what you believe or what spiritual path you take, as long as you experience something powerful that works for you.

• You can get valid spiritual guidance from astrologers, fortunetellers, psychics, [shamans,] and mediums (those who seek to contact the departed dead).

• It is important to get in touch with the spirits in trees, rivers, hills, and sacred places.

In this worldview, the Bible sets the standard for how the world is to be seen and understood. God has always been in control and will always be in control. His supremacy over all is undeniable.  

View of the Supernatural: 

The Biblical worldview assume the reality of the physical and supernatural worlds... God and Satan are enemies, but God is the sure winner and Satan the sure loser in this spiritual conflict (see Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 14:12-15; Luke 10:18; 1 John 3:8; and Revelation 12:9). Spiritual beings that lead us toward God are angels; spiritual beings that lead us away from God are demons. Satan and the demons—who as created beings cannot exist unless God permits them to exist—have much less power, authority, or scope of activity than God.

World religions that embody this worldview: 

• Christianity

• Judaism

Here are some characteristic sayings or attitudes connected to the Biblical Worldview: 

• “Have no other gods before me” (in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:3).

• “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.’ . . . ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (Matthew 22:37-39).

• God is good. He loves you. 

• “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

This worldview says that the physical, material, natural world—what we experience with our five senses—is the only solid reality. According to this worldview, religious and spiritual explanations or doctrines are imaginary superstitions, illusions, or wishful thinking having nothing to do with what is real or knowable.

This [naturalistic] worldview reduces everything to a closed system of physical causes and effects. Nothing real exists outside the box, neither gods, God, angels, demons, the souls of the departed dead, heaven, nor hell. This worldview is hermetically sealed against the supernatural. Even if God did a miracle in front of their eyes, these materialists would have to explain it away in naturalistic terms according to the strict, inflexible rules of their worldview— attributing the unexplainable to extraterrestrials for example.

Notice what this worldview does to our humanity. We become mere cosmic accidents, here as a result of time, chance, and matter. When we die, that’s it. There’s no lasting meaning, purpose, or value to life.

This worldview leads directly to moral relativism. Since any one person’s or culture’s perspective is as good as any other’s, there’s no way to say with compelling authority that anything is ever objectively right or wrong in all times and places. You can’t even say with authority that the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide was wrong. All we have are opinions, man-made laws, social norms, prejudices, and personal tastes and whims—any sense of universal morals, virtue, truth, or beauty are terminated.

View of the Supernatural:

There is only the material word and nothing else. No supernatural anything. 

Belief systems that embody this worldview: 

• Naturalism (the idea that nature is all there is)

• Materialism (the belief that the material world is all there is)

• Atheism (the belief that there is no God)

• Agnosticism (the belief that we don’t know or can’t be sure there is a God) - this belief system should be included in this category because agnostics make daily decisions as if the WYSIWYG worldview were true

View of the Supernatural:

The Dueling-Yodas world, more technically called cosmic dualism (cosmic for vast, eternal principles; dualism for “two), can be seen as a moral universe. This is a battlefield for the constant duel between good and evil (or a tug-of-war between the forces of yin and yang). The good and evil principles may be conceived of as personal (a good god versus an evil god) or impersonal (a good force versus an evil force). Each human being must choose which side to follow; to be moral, a person must master his or her passions and make the right choices.

Belief systems that embody this worldview: 

• Persian Zoroastrianism, in which the good god Ahura Mazda (or Ohrmazd) fought against the evil god Angra Maiynu (or Ahriman). Zoroastrianism was an ethical dualism because it focused on human choices. 

• The Chinese religion of Taoism (also called Daoism), which supposes an eternal, dynamic tension or balance between yin and yang.

Here are some sayings and attitudes from the Dueling-Yodas Worldview: 

• Two dogs are fighting within me. The one that wins is the one I feed the most (possible Native American origin).

• Train yourself to be indifferent to pleasure or pain (Stoicism).

• Humankind is caught in a no-win situation (Cynicism).

The idea of this worldview [is] that the physical world is only apparently real and its essence is spirit or mind. In this worldview the barrier between the physical and the spiritual is illusionary. Your mind is supposed to create its own reality—the only reality that matters... Since we are all divine, or at least we are all part of God, all you have to do is look within yourself to find “God.” Also since... everything is God, you are essentially no different from a blade of grass or that cockroach over there. All are equally God or a part of God.

What happens when we die, according to this worldview: The soul is “born again” (recycled or reincarnated) in a new body, to live thousands or millions of lives on its way to eventual (and guaranteed) union with the One. Not every monist believes in karma and reincarnation, but on the whole this belief is characteristic among monists and pantheists.

Religions and belief systems that embody this worldview:

• Pantheism (the belief that all is God or all is spirit; that we are all divine or at least we are all part of God)

• Holism (the belief that everything is connected because it is all part of the One)

• Monism (the belief that everything is one; that God and you are one) 

• Beliefs in Hinduism and forms of Buddhism that all is one and that everything is spirit

Here are some typical sayings and attitudes of Omnipresent Supergalactic Oneness: 

• You can do anything if you just believe in yourself. 

• The “Christ” is already within you; you just need to realize it. 

• All spiritual paths lead to the same destination. 

• What goes around comes around (referring to karma and reincarnation).

A lot of people today do not consider themselves to be a part of any organized religion or thought-out philosophy. They like to pull from various traditions and come up with a religion of their own... This worldview is whatever you want it to be... I call it Designer Religion.Designer Religionists cobble together different religions, philosophies, and whims into personally customized spiritualities. The result is full of different kinds of religious, scientific, pseudoscientific, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual babble that may be incompatible with each other. It’s like going to a cafeteria with an all-you-can-eat buffet and being offered dishes like Sweet-and-Sour Kraut and Egg-Foo Schnitzel.

Designer Religion is actually not a separate worldview category but a faux worldview because, as a matter of fact, if you’re into Designer Religion, you cannot avoid “camping” in the Haunted, the Dueling-Yodas, or the Omnipresent Supergalactic worldview. As you bring in diverse ideas and spiritual practices, you’re basically making them fit into your main preferred worldview.

One big attraction of Designer Religion, aside from the benefit of being able to think of oneself as rather creative and cosmopolitan, is no guilt. Since you are customizing your own religion to suit yourself, there are no more outside constraints—you can do whatever you want. 

View of the Supernatural:

• It really depends on what parts of different religions and belief systems are being brought together. 

Belief systems that embody this worldview: 

• Religious syncretism

• The New Age movement

• The Age of Aquarius

• New religions and a new religious consciousness

Here are some characteristic sayings and attitudes of this pseudo worldview: 

• I’m not into organized religion.

• I’m spiritual, not religious.

• Whatever works for you.

• As long as it doesn’t hurt anybody . . .