Some thoughts on Anamorphic Gods and Goddesses and the reincarnation of the soul.

If we look back in history we are often presented with the images combining human and animal forms Sorcerer of Trois-Freres being an early example. To the anthropologist these are seen as humans expressing their religious understanding of the world in concepts they can relate to or the survival of shamanic practice of ancestors using animal forms. Animistic beliefs could be seen to have their most complexed representation in the anamorphic forms of ancient Egypt, among some Egyptologists the pantheon of Gods/Goddesses may relate to ancient ancestors shamanic practice much like other African cultures.
Many cultures Gods/Goddesses have the suggestion either in creation or foundation beliefs that they existed in a human or animal form Woden is sometime referred to in the context of being a Shaman. Zeus is a shapeshifting God who overcame earlier primordial entities to become the father of the Gods/Goddesses, the appearance of shapeshifting in religion and folklore is worldwide.
But while the simplistic idea of simply a tool towards hunting may be true in some cases, however returning to the image of the Sorcerer we have an amalgam of animals and the human form. This image is embodying the important animals of that time the human being one of them, in shamanic societies other species are spoken of as our brothers and sisters their spirits being equal too ours or wiser. The shaman seeks the wisdom of the Salmon or the Crow to advise on earthly matters, in the  modern western mind we are taught that animals just use instinct and lack thought or reason being beneath us.
However finally science is beginning to understand that many animals not just primates have remarkable levels of reasoning, The vast communication abilities of the Corvids with 1000 plus calls and two types of language and problem solving abilities using tools, other species such as octopuses have now being evidenced using tools, along with warblers, elephants to name but a few.
Dolphins and Whales are now recognized to have complexed communications and social grouping by most people, the example of Koko the signing gorilla and perhaps more interestingly Kanzi a bonobo show ability of animals to explore abstract thought and learning process beyond instinct. increasingly examples of interspecies cooperation, that was the stuff of folklore is being recorded for the first time empirically thanks to new technology. Non human animals are vastly more complexed then we generally realize, we try to judge them by our standards assuming we are superior because of our demonstrated technological advantages.
How then does this relate to reincarnation, it often being mooted by those that don't believe in reincarnation that there is far to many people alive to be accounted for by previously living people. The Hindu religion believes in the evolution of the soul and that people may previously have being animals, in my observation I believe this to be true we all may have had previous lives in animal form however we find it difficult enough to remember our past human life which would have being in a form that we can relate to, let alone the complexity of understanding significantly different forms of thinking.
I am lucky enough to have retained memories from a number of past lives, however faintly I believe that one of my memories was in animal form and don’t consider any less of a life then the others.
WE are animals, we share same building blocks physically and same desires to live eat make love and rest. So how is this relating to the anamorphic Gods/Goddesses, our ancestors were far more connected to the spiritual realms then us and saw the Gods/Goddesses for what they were Gods/Goddesses of all things and likewise they were part of all things human and non human when we saw them they had the appearance of a mixture of us and our animal brothers and sisters. However to excuse our growing abuse and lack of honoring of our brothers and sisters the Gods/Goddesses lost their anamorphic image. It is in the older religious belief of Shamanism that we see the true face of Gods/Goddesses and it wears a beak or whiskers and I am not talking a long white beard