ABSTRACT
People throughout the world have beliefs in supernatural beings of some sort, whether they are the spirits of ancestors, ghosts, or spirits of trees or animals. In simple societies such as hunting and gathering societies and horticultural societies, there are usually a great many of these supernatural beings; these tend to be polytheistic religions. In agrarian societies, there is often just one primary being featured; these are monotheistic religions. The three great religions of the world-Islam, Judaism, and Christianityare products of agrarian societies, and they are all monotheistic: They propose just one primary supernatural being or God. However, this is just a tendency and as with all tendencies there are exceptions. As discussed in Chapter 4, preindustrial Japan was an agrarian society and the religion was Shinto-Buddhism, a religion with multiple supernatural beings (spirits and ancestors) as well as beliefs in the Buddha.
