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EspañolMIRCEA ELIADE
:''"Eliade" redirects here. For the 19th century Wallachian writer, see Ion Heliade Rădulescu.''
'Mircea Eliade' ( – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that ''hierophanies'' form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.[1] One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of ''Eternal Return'', which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them. In academia, the Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.[1] His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genre; the best known are the autobiographical novel ''Maitreyi'' (''La Nuit Bengali'' or ''Bengal Nights''), the novella ''Domnişoara Christina'' (''Miss Christina''), and the short stories ''Secretul doctorului Honigberger'' (''The Secret of Dr. Honigberger'') and ''La Ţigănci'' (''With the Gypsy Girls'').
Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society ''Criterion''. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization; his political involvement at the time, as well his other far right connections, were the frequent topic of criticism after World War II.
Remarkable for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected postmortem member of the Romanian Academy.
Born in Bucharest, he was the son of Romanian Land Forces officer Gheorghe Eliade (whose original surname was Ieremia).[3] An Orthodox believer, Gheorghe Eliade registered his son's birth four days before the actual date, to coincide with the liturgical calendar feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (''see March 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)''). As a child, Eliade was fascinated with the natural world, which formed the setting of his very first literary attempts. His first work to be published was ''Cum am găsit piatra filosofală'', "How I Found the Philosophers' Stone", printed in 1921, when he was aged 14.
Mircea Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arşavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, and Petre Viforeanu (and several years the senior of Nicolae Steinhardt, who was to satirize his novels under the pen name ''Antisthius'', and who became a close friend of Eliade's).[4] Another one of his colleagues was the future philosopher Constantin Noica.
He joined the Romanian Boy Scouts, and, with a group of friends, designed and sailed a boat on the Danube, from Tulcea to the Black Sea.[5] At the same time, Eliade grew estranged from the educational environment, becoming disenchanted with the discipline required and obsessed with the idea that he was uglier and less virile than his colleagues. In order to cultivate his willpower, he would force himself to swallow insects. At one point, Eliade was flunking four subjects, among which was the study of Romanian language. Instead, he became interested in natural science and chemistry, as well as the occult, and, despite his father's concern that he was in danger of losing his already weak eyesight, read passionately. One of his favorite authors was Honoré de Balzac, whose work he studied carefully. Eliade wrote his debut volume, the autobiographical ''Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent'' (influenced by the literature of Giovanni Papini, particularly his ''Un uomo finito''); it was completed in 1925.
He graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in 1928, earning his diploma with a study on ''Italian Philosophy from Marsilio Ficino to Giordano Bruno'', and subsequently traveled to Italy, where he met Papini and collaborated with the scholar Giuseppe Tucci. It was during his student years that Eliade would meet Nae Ionescu, who lectured in Logic, becoming one of his disciples and friends. He was especially attracted to Ionescu's radical ideas and his interest in religion, which signified a break with the rationalist tradition represented by senior academics such as Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Dimitrie Gusti, and Tudor Vianu (all of whom owed inspiration to the defunct literary society ''Junimea'', albeit in varying degrees).
Eliade's scholarly works began after a long period of study in British India, at the University of Calcutta. Finding that the Maharaja of Kassimbazar sponsored European scholars to study in India, Eliade applied and was granted an allowance for four years. In 1928 he sailed for Calcutta to study Sanskrit and philosophy under Surendranath Dasgupta, a Bengali Cambridge alumnus and professor at Calcutta University, the author of a five volume ''History of Indian Philosophy''. While living with Dasgupta, Eliade fell in love with his daughter, Maitreyi Devi, later writing a barely-disguised autobiographical novel ''Maitreyi'' (also known as ''La Nuit Bengali'' or ''Bengal Nights''), in which he claimed that he carried on a physical relationship with her.[6] When she became aware of this account, she contested it in her own novel ''Na Hanyate'', written in Bengali (the title in English is ''It Does Not Die'').
At the time, he became interested in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met personally,[7] and the ''Satyagraha'' as a phenomenon; later, Eliade adapted Gandhist ideas in his discourse on spirituality and Romania.[7] He received his PhD with a thesis on Yoga practices.[9]
After contributing various and generally polemical pieces in university magazines, Eliade came to the attention of journalist Pamfil Şeicaru, who invited him to collaborate on the nationalist paper ''Cuvântul'', which was noted for its harsh tones. By then, ''Cuvântul'' was also hosting articles by Ionescu.
As one of the figures in the ''Criterion'' literary society (1933-1934), Eliade's initial encounter with the traditional far right was polemical: the group's conferences were stormed by members of A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League, who objected to what they viewed as pacifism and addressed anti-Semitic insults to several speakers, including Mihail Sebastian;[10] in 1933, he was among the signers of a manifesto opposing Nazi Germany's state-enforced racism.[11] Eliade's views at the time focused on innovation — in the summer of 1933, he replied to an anti-modernist critique written by George Călinescu:
However, while a professor at the University of Bucharest (1933-1939), Eliade became active in nationalist politics. He and friends Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica were by then under the influence of ''Trăirism'', a school of thought that was formed around the ideals expressed by Ionescu. A form of existentialism, ''Trăirism'' was also the synthesis of traditional and newer right-wing beliefs.[14]
Eliade's articles before and after his adherence to the principles of the Iron Guard (or, as it was usually known at the time, the ''Legionary Movement''), beginning with his famous ''Itinerar spiritual'' ("Spiritual itinerary", serialized in ''Cuvântul'' in 1927), center on several political ideals advocated by the far right. They displayed his rejection of liberalism and the modernizing goals of the 1848 Wallachian revolution (perceived as "an abstract apology of Mankind"[15] and "ape-like imitation of [Western] Europe"),[16] as well as for democracy itself (accusing it of "managing to crush all attempts at national renaissance",[17] and later praising Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy on the grounds that, according to Eliade, "[in Italy,] he who thinks for himself is promoted to the highest office in the shortest of times").[17] He approved of an ethnic nationalist state centered on the Romanian Orthodox Church (in 1927, despite his still-vivid interest in Theosophy, he recommended young intellectuals "the return to the Church"),[19] which he opposed to, among others, the secular nationalism of Constantin Rădulescu-Motru;[20] referring to this particular ideal as "Romanianism", Eliade was, in 1934, still viewing it as "neither fascism, nor chauvinism".[21] Eliade was especially dissatisfied with the incidence of unemployment among intellectuals, whose careers in state-financed institutions had been rendered uncertain by the Great Depression.[22]
By 1937, he gave his intellectual support to the Iron Guard, in which he saw "a Christian revolution aimed at creating a new Romania",[23] and a group able "to reconcile Romania with God".[23] His articles of the time, published in Iron Guard papers such as ''Sfarmă Piatră'' and ''Buna Vestire'', contain ample praises of the movement's leaders (Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Ion Moţa, Vasile Marin, and Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul).[25] He eventually enrolled in the ''Totul pentru Ţară'' ("Everything for the Fatherland" Party), the political expression of the Iron Guard,[26] and contributed to its 1937 electoral campaign in Prahova County — as indicated by his inclusion on a list of party members with county-level responsibilities (published in ''Buna Vestire'').[26]
The stance taken by Eliade resulted in his arrest on July 14, 1938 after a crackdown on the Iron Guard authorized by King Carol II. At the time of his arrest, he had just interrupted a column on ''Provincia şi legionarismul'' ("The Province and the Iron Guard's ideology") in ''Vremea'', having been singled out by Prime Minister Armand Călinescu as an author of Iron Guard propaganda.[28]
Eliade was kept for three weeks in a cell at the ''Siguranţa Statului'' Headquarters, in an attempt to have him sign a "declaration of dissociation" with the Iron Guard, but he refused to do so.[29] In the first week of August he was transferred to a makeshift camp at Miercurea-Ciuc. When Eliade began coughing blood in October 1938, he was taken to a clinic in Moroeni.[29] Eliade was simply released on November 12 and, with the help of Alexandru Rosetti, became the cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, a posting cut short when Romanian-British foreign relations were broken.[29]
After leaving London he retained the same position in Portugal, where he was kept on as diplomat by the National Legionary State (the Iron Guard government) and, ultimately, by Ion Antonescu's regime. In 1942, Eliade authored a volume in praise of the ''Estado Novo'', established in Portugal by António de Oliveira Salazar, alleging that "The Salazarian state, a Christian and totalitarian one, is first and foremost based on love".[32] On July 7 of the same year, he was received by Salazar himself, who asked assigned Eliade the task of warning Antonescu to withdraw the Romanian Army from the Eastern Front ("[In his place], I would not be grinding it in Russia").[33] Eliade also claimed that such contacts with the leader of a neutral country had made him the target for Gestapo surveillance, but that he had managed to communicate Salazar's advice to Mihai Antonescu, Romania's Foreign Minister.[34]
At signs that the Romanian communist regime was about to take hold, Eliade opted not to return to the country. He lived in France, where, recommended by Georges Dumézil, he taught at the ''École Pratique des Hautes Études'' in Paris. It was estimated that, at the time, it was not uncommon for him to work 15 hours a day.
In 1957, he moved to the United States. He was invited by Joachim Wach to give a series of lectures at Wach's home institution, the University of Chicago, and settled in Chicago. The two scholars are generally admitted to be the founders of the "Chicago school" that basically defined the study of religions for the second half of the 20th century.[35] Upon Wach's untimely death before the lectures were delivered, Eliade was appointed as his replacement, becoming the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions. He also worked as editor-in-chief of Macmillan Publishers' ''Encyclopedia of Religion'', collaborated with Carl Jung and the ''Eranos'' circle, and wrote for the ''Antaios'' magazine (edited by Ernst Jünger).
Initially attacked with virulence by the Romanian Communist Party press, chiefly by ''România Liberă'' (which described him as "the Iron Guard's ideologue, enemy of the working class, apologist of Salazar's dictatorship"),[36] he was slowly rehabilitated beginning in the early 1960s (under the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej).[37] In the 1970s, Eliade was approached by the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime in several ways, in order to have him return. The move was prompted by the officially-sanctioned nationalism and Romania's claim to independence from the Eastern Bloc, as both phenomena came to see Eliade's prestige as an asset. An unprecedented event occurred with the interview that was granted by Mircea Eliade to poet Adrian Păunescu, during the latter's 1970 visit to Chicago; Eliade complimented both Păunescu's activism and his support for official tenets, expressing a belief that
Păunescu's visit to Chicago was followed by those of the nationalist official writer Eugen Barbu and by Eliade's friend Constantin Noica.[39] At the time, Eliade contemplated returning to Romania, but was eventually persuaded by fellow Romanian intellectuals in exile (including Radio Free Europe's Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu) to reject Communist proposals.[39] In 1977, he joined other exiled Romanian intellectuals in signing a telegram protesting the repressive measures newly enforced by the Ceauşescu regime.
During his latter years, Eliade's fascist past was progressively exposed publicly, the stress of which probably contributed to the decline of his health. He died in April 1986, four months after a fire destroyed part of his office (an event which he had interpreted as an omen).
In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is most highly regarded for his writings on Shamanism, Yoga and what he called the eternal return—the implicit belief, supposedly present in religious thought in general, that religious behavior is not only an imitation of, but also a participation in, sacred events, and thus restores the mythical time of origins. Eliade's thinking was in part influenced by Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Nae Ionescu and the writings of the Traditionalist School (René Guénon and Julius Evola).[41] For instance, Eliade's ''The Sacred and the Profane'' partially builds on Otto's ''The Idea of the Holy'' to show how religion emerges from the experience of the sacred, and myths of time and nature.
Eliade is noted for his attempt to find broad, cross-cultural parallels and unities in religion, particularly in myths. Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death, notes that "Eliade argued boldly for universals where he might more safely have argued for widely prevalent patterns".[42] His ''Treatise on the History of Religions'' was praised by French philologist Georges Dumézil for its coherence and ability to synthesize diverse and distinct mythologies.[43]
Eliade argues that religious thought in general rests on a sharp distinction between the Sacred and the profane;[44] whether it takes the form of God, gods, or mythical Ancestors, the Sacred contains all "reality", or value, and other things acquire "reality" only to the extent that they participate in the sacred.[45]
Eliade's understanding of religion centers on his concept of hierophany (manifestation of the Sacred) — a concept that includes, but is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany (manifestation of a god).[46] From the perspective of religious thought, Eliade argues, hierophanies give structure and orientation to the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of nonreligious experience can only be divided up geometrically: it has no "qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation [is] given by virtue of its inherent structure".[47] Thus, profane space gives man no pattern for his behavior. In contrast to profane space, the site of a hierophany has a sacred structure to which religious man conforms himself. A hierophany amounts to a "revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the nonreality of the vast surrounding expanse".[48] As an example of "sacred space" demanding a certain response from man, Eliade gives the story of Moses halting before Yahweh's manifestation as a burning bush (''Exodus'' 3:5) and taking off his shoes.[49]
Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time.[50] According to the myths, this was the time when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the world's structure — myths claim to describe the primordial events that made society and the natural world be that which they are. Eliade argues that all myths are, in that sense, origin myths: "myth, then, is always an account of a 'creation'".[51]
Many traditional societies believe that the power of a thing lies in its origin.[52] If origin is equivalent to power, then "it is the first manifestation of a thing that is significant and valid"[53] (a thing's reality and value therefore lies only in its first appearance).
According to Eliade's theory, only the Sacred has value, only a thing's first appearance has value and, therefore, only the Sacred's first appearance has value. Myth describes the Sacred's first appearance; therefore, the mythical age is sacred time,[50] the only time of value: "primitive man was interested only in the ''beginnings'' [...] to him it mattered little what had happened to himself, or to others like him, in more or less distant times".[55] Eliade postulated this as the reason for the "nostalgia for origins" that appears in many religions, the desire to return to a primordial Paradise.[55]
:''Main article: Eternal return (Eliade)''
Eliade argues that traditional man attributes no value to the linear march of historical events: only the events of the mythical age have value. To give his own life value, traditional man performs myths and rituals. Because the Sacred's essence lies only in the mythical age, only in the Sacred's first appearance, any later appearance is actually the first appearance; by recounting or reenacting mythical events, myths and rituals "reactualize" those events.[57]
Thus, argues Eliade, religious behavior does not only commemorate, but also participates in, sacred events:
Eliade called this concept the "eternal return" (distinguished from the philosophical concept of "eternal return"). Wendy Doniger noted that Eliade's theory of the eternal return "has become a truism in the study of religions".[1]
Eliade attributes the well-known "cyclic" vision of time in ancient thought to belief in the eternal return. For instance, the New Year ceremonies among the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, and other Near Eastern peoples reenacted their cosmogonic myths. Therefore, by the logic of the eternal return, each New Year ceremony ''was'' the beginning of the world for these peoples. According to Eliade, these peoples felt a need to return to the Beginning at regular intervals, turning time into a circle.[60]
Eliade argues that yearning to remain in the mythical age causes a "terror of history": traditional man desires to escape the linear succession of events (which, Eliade indicated, he viewed as empty of any inherent value or sacrality). Eliade suggests that the abandonment of mythical thought and the full acceptance of linear, historical time, with its "terror", is one of the reasons for modern man's anxieties.[61] Traditional societies escape this anxiety to an extent, as they refuse to completely acknowledge historical time.
Eliade claims that many myths, rituals, and mystical experiences involve a "coincidence of opposites", or ''coincidentia oppositorum''. In fact, he calls the ''coincidentia oppositorum'' "the mythical pattern".[62] Many myths, Eliade notes, "present us with a twofold revelation":
Eliade argues that "Yahweh is both kind and wrathful; the God of the Christian mystics and theologians is terrible and gentle at once".[64] He also thought that the Indian and Chinese mystic tried to attain "a state of perfect indifference and neutrality" that resulted in a coincidence of opposites in which "pleasure and pain, desire and repulsion, cold and heat [...] are expunged from his awareness".[64]
According to Eliade, the ''coincidentia oppositorum''’s appeal lies in "man's deep dissatisfaction with his actual situation, with what is called the human condition".[66] In many mythologies, the "fall" out of the mythical age resulted in a fundamental "ontological change in the structure of the World".[67] Because the ''coincidentia oppositorum'' is a contradiction, it represents an abolition of the laws of the "fallen" world.
Also, traditional man's dissatisfaction with the post-mythical age expresses itself as a feeling of being "torn and separate".[68] In many mythologies, the lost mythical age was a Paradise, "a paradoxical state in which the contraries exist side by side without conflict, and the multiplications form aspects of a mysterious Unity".[67] The ''coincidentia oppositorum'' expresses a wish to recover the lost unity of the mythical Paradise, for it presents a reconciliation of opposites and the unification of diversity:
Eliade acknowledges that not all religious behavior has all the attributes described in his theory of sacred time and the eternal return. The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions embrace linear, historical time as sacred or capable of sanctification, while some Eastern traditions largely reject the notion of sacred time, seeking escape from the cycles of time.
Because they contain rituals, Judaism and Christianity necessarily — Eliade argues — retain a sense of cyclic time:
However, Judaism and Christianity do not see time as a circle endlessly turning on itself; nor do they see such a cycle as desirable, as a way to participate in the Sacred. Instead, these religions embrace the concept of linear history progressing toward the Messianic Age or the Last Judgment, thus initiating the idea of "progress" (humans are to work for a Paradise in the future).[72] However, Eliade's understanding of Judaeo-Christian eschatology can also be understood as cyclical in that the "end of time" is a return to God: "The final catastrophe will put an end to history, hence will restore man to eternity and beatitude".[73]
The Dharmic religions of the East generally retain a cyclic view of time — for instance, the Hindu doctrine of ''kalpas''. According to Eliade, most religions that accept the cyclic view of time also embrace it: they see it as a way to return to the sacred time. However, in Buddhism, Jainism, and some forms of Hinduism, the Sacred lies outside the flux of the material world (called ''maya'', or "illusion"), and one can only reach it by escaping from the cycles of time.[74] Because the Sacred lies outside cyclic time, which conditions humans, people can only reach the Sacred by escaping the human condition. According to Eliade, Yoga techniques aim at escaping the limitations of the body, allowing the soul (''atman'') to rise above ''maya'' and reach the Sacred (''nirvana'', ''moksha''). Imagery of "freedom", and of death to one's old body and rebirth with a new body, occur frequently in Yogic texts, representing escape from the bondage of the temporal human condition.[75] Eliade discusses these themes in detail in ''Yoga: Immortality and Freedom''.
Main articles: Axis mundi
A recurrent theme in Eliade's myth analysis is the ''axis mundi'', the Center of the World. According to Eliade, the Cosmic Center is a necessary corollary to the division of reality into the Sacred and the profane. The Sacred contains all value, and the world gains purpose and meaning only through hierophanies:
Because profane space gives man no orientation for his life, the Sacred must manifest itself in a hierophany, thereby establishing a sacred site around which man can orient himself. The site of a hierophany establishes a "fixed point, a center".[77] This Center abolishes the "homogeneity and relativity of profane space",[47] for it becomes "the central axis for all future orientation".[48]
A manifestation of the Sacred in profane space is, by definition, an example of something breaking through from one plane of existence to another. Therefore, the initial hierophany that establishes the Center must be a point at which there is contact between different planes — this, Eliade argues, explains the frequent mythical imagery of a Cosmic Tree or Pillar joining Heaven, Earth, and the underworld.[80]
Eliade noted that, when traditional societies found a new territory, they often perform consecrating rituals that reenact the hierophany that established the Center and founded the world.[81] In addition, the designs of traditional buildings, especially temples, usually imitate the mythical image of the ''axis mundi'' joining the different cosmic levels. For instance, the Babylonian ziggurats were built to resemble cosmic mountains passing through the heavenly spheres, and the rock of the Temple in Jerusalem was supposed to reach deep into the ''tehom'', or primordial waters.[82]
According to the logic of the eternal return, the site of each such symbolic Center will actually be the Center of the World:
According to Eliade's interpretation, religious man apparently feels the need to live not only near, but ''at'', the mythical Center as much as possible, given that the Center is the point of communication with the Sacred.[84]
Thus, Eliade argues, many traditional societies share common outlines in their mythical geographies. In the middle of the known world is the sacred Center, "a place that is sacred above all";[85] this Center anchors the established order.[86] Around the sacred Center lies the known world, the realm of established order; and beyond the known world is a chaotic and dangerous realm, "peopled by ghosts, demons, [and] 'foreigners' (who are [identified with] demons and the souls of the dead)".[87] According to Eliade, traditional societies place their known world at the Center because (from their perspective) their known world is the realm that obeys a recognizable order, and it therefore must be the realm in which the Sacred manifests itself; the regions beyond the known world, which seem strange and foreign, must lie far from the Center, outside the order established by the Sacred.[88]
Many pre-agricultural societies hold a vague belief in a supreme sky-god. Like Wilhelm Schmidt's "historico-cultural school" of religious studies, Eliade cites this sky-god as evidence of an earlier "primordial monotheism" (''Urmonotheismus'').[89] This hypothesis is directly opposed to certain schools of thought that see religion evolving linearly from polytheism to monotheism.
However, unlike Schmidt, Eliade cautiously avoids assuming that this primordial monotheism was the very beginning of religion. "At most," he writes, "this schema renders an account of human [religious] evolution since the paleolithic era".[90] Eliade also points out that his hypothetical ''Urmonotheismus'' probably differed in many ways from the conceptions of God in many modern monotheistic faiths: for instance, the primordial High God could manifest himself as an animal without losing his status as a celestial Supreme Being.[91]
Eliade speculates that the discovery of agriculture brought a host of fertility gods and goddesses into the forefront, causing the celestial Supreme Being to fade away and eventually vanish from many ancient religions.[92] Even in the primitive hunter-gatherer societies in which Eliade identifies traces of the ''Urmonotheismus'', the High God is a vague, distant figure, dwelling high above the world. Often he has no cult and receives prayer only as a last resort, when prayers to all other gods have failed.[93] Eliade calls the distant High God a ''deus otiosus'' ("idle god").[94]
In belief systems that involve a ''deus otiosus'', the distant High God is believed to have been closer to humans during the mythical age. After finishing his works of creation, the High God "forsook the earth and withdrew into the highest heaven".[95] This is an example of the Sacred's distance from "profane" life, life lived after the mythical age: by escaping from the profane condition through religious behavior, figures such as the shaman return to the conditions of the mythical age, which include nearness to the High God ("by his ''flight'' or ascension, the shaman [...] meets the God of Heaven face to face and speaks directly to him, as man sometimes did ''in illo tempore''").[96] The shamanistic behaviors surrounding the High God are a particularly clear example of the eternal return.
Eliade's scholarly work includes a well-known study of shamanism, ''Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy'', a survey of shamanistic practices in different areas. His ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'' also addresses shamanism in some detail.
In ''Shamanism'', Eliade argues for a restrictive use of the word ''shaman'': it should not apply to just any magician or medicine man, as that would make the term redundant; at the same time, he argues against restricting the term to the practitioners of the sacred of Siberia and Central Asia (it is from one of the titles for this function, namely, ''šamán'', considered by Eliade to be of Tungusic origin, that the term itself was introduced into Western languages).[97] Eliade defines a shaman as follows:
If we define shamanism this way, Eliade claims, we find that the term covers a collection of phenomena that share a common and unique "structure" and "history".[98] (When thus defined, shamanism tends to occur in its purest forms in hunting and pastoral societies like those of Siberia and Central Asia, which revere a celestial High God "on the way to becoming a ''deus otiosus''".[100] Eliade takes the shamanism of those regions as his most representative example.)
In his examinations of shamanism, Eliade emphasizes the shaman's attribute of regaining man's condition before the "Fall" out of sacred time: "The most representative mystical experience of the archaic societies, that of shamanism, betrays the ''Nostalgia for Paradise'', the desire to recover the state of freedom and beatitude before 'the Fall'."[96] This concern — which, by itself, is the concern of almost all religious behavior, according to Eliade — manifests itself in specific ways in shamanism.
According to Eliade, one of the most common shamanistic themes is the shaman's supposed death and resurrection. This occurs in particular during his initiation.[102] Often, the procedure is supposed to be performed by spirits who dismember the shaman and strip the flesh from his bones, then put him back together and revive him. In more than one way, this death and resurrection represents the shaman's elevation above human nature.
First, the shaman dies so that he can rise above human nature on a quite literal level. After he has been dismembered by the initiatory spirits, they often replace his old organs with new, magical ones (the shaman dies to his profane self so that he can rise again as a new, sanctified, being).[103] Second, by being reduced to his bones, the shaman experiences rebirth on a more symbolic level: in many hunting and herding societies, the bone represents the source of life, so reduction to a skeleton "is equivalent to re-entering the womb of this primordial life, that is, to a complete renewal, a mystical rebirth".[104] Eliade considers this return to the source of life essentially equivalent to the eternal return.[105]
Third, the shamanistic phenomenon of repeated death and resurrection also represents a transfiguration in other ways. The shaman dies not once but many times: having died during initiation and risen again with new powers, the shaman can send his spirit out of his body on errands; thus, his whole career consists of repeated deaths and resurrections. The shaman's new ability to die and return to life shows that he is no longer bound by the laws of profane time, particularly the law of death: "the ability to 'die' and come to life again [...] denotes that [the shaman] has surpassed the human condition".[106]
Having risen above the human condition, the shaman is not bound by the flow of history. Therefore, he enjoys the conditions of the mythical age. In many myths, humans can speak with animals; and, after their initiations, many shamans claim to be able to communicate with animals. According to Eliade, this is one manifestation of the shaman's return to "the ''illud tempus'' described to us by the paradisiac myths".[107]
The shaman can descend to the underworld or ascend to heaven, often by climbing the World Tree, the cosmic pillar, the sacred ladder, or some other form of the ''axis mundi''.[108] Often, the shaman will ascend to heaven to speak with the High God. Because the gods (particularly the High God, according to Eliade's ''deus otiosus'' concept) were closer to humans during the mythical age, the shaman's easy communication with the High God represents an abolition of history and a return to the mythical age.[96]
Because of his ability to communicate with the gods and descend to the land of the dead, the shaman frequently functions as a psychopomp and a medicine man.[98]
By profession, Eliade was a historian of religion. However, his scholarly works draw heavily on philosophical and psychological terminology. In addition, they contain a number of philosophical arguments about religion. Because of these arguments, some have accused Eliade of promoting a theological agenda under the guise of historical scholarship; however, others argue that Eliade is better understood as a scholar who is willing to openly discuss sacred experience and its consequences.[111]
In studying religion, Eliade rejects certain "reductionist" approaches.[112] Eliade thinks a religious phenomenon can't be reduced to a product of culture and history. He insists that, although religion involves "the social man, the economic man, and so forth", nonetheless "all these conditioning factors together do not, of themselves, add up to the life of the spirit".[113]
Using this anti-reductionist position, Eliade argues against those who accuse him of overgeneralizing, of looking for universals at the expense of particulars. Eliade admits that every religious phenomenon is shaped by the particular culture and history that produced it:
However, Eliade argues against those he calls "historicist or existentialist philosophers" who do not recognize "man in general" behind particular men produced by particular situations.[113] (Eliade cites Kant as the likely forerunner of this kind of "historicism".[113]) Eliade argues that human consciousness transcends (is not reducible to) its historical and cultural conditioning.[117] He even suggests the possibility of a "transconscious".[118] By this, Eliade does not necessarily mean anything supernatural or mystical: within the "transconscious", he places religious motifs, symbols, images, and nostalgias that are supposedly universal and whose causes therefore can't be reduced to historical and cultural conditioning.[119]
According to Eliade, traditional man feels that things "acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality".[120] To traditional man, the profane world is "meaningless", and a thing rises out of the profane world only by conforming to an ideal, mythical model.[121]
Eliade describes this view of reality as a fundamental part of "primitive ontology".[122] (Ontology is the study of "existence" or "reality".) Here he sees a similarity with the philosophy of Plato, who believed that physical phenomena are pale and transient imitations of eternal models or "Forms":
Eliade thinks the Platonic Theory of Forms is "primitive ontology" persisting in Greek philosophy. He claims that Platonism is the "most fully elaborated" version of this primitive ontology.[124]
In ''The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan'', John Daniel Dadosky argues that, by making this statement, Eliade was acknowledging "indebtedness to Greek philosophy in general, and to Plato's theory of forms specifically, for his own theory of archetypes [i.e., ideal models] and repetition".[125] However, Dadosky also states that "one should be cautious when trying to assess Eliade's indebtedness to Plato".[126] Dadosky quotes Robert Segal, a professor of religion, who draws a distinction between Platonism and Eliade's "primitive ontology": for Eliade, the ideal models are patterns that a person or object may or may not imitate; for Plato, there is a Form for everything, and everything imitates a Form by the very fact that it exists.[127]
Behind the diverse cultural forms of different religions, Eliade proposes a universal: traditional man, he claims, "always believes that there is an absolute reality, ''the sacred'', which transcends this world but manifests itself in this world, thereby sanctifying it and making it real".[128] Furthermore, traditional man's behavior gains purpose and meaning through the Sacred: "By imitating divine behavior, man puts and keeps himself close to the gods — that is, in the real and the significant."[129]
According to Eliade, "modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation".[128] For traditional man, historical events gain significance by imitating sacred, transcendent events. In contrast, nonreligious man "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and refuses all appeal to transcendence".[131] In other words, nonreligious man lacks sacred models for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed. From the standpoint of religious thought, the world has an objective purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: "Myth teaches [religious man] the primordial 'stories' that have constituted him existentially."[132] From the standpoint of secular thought, any purpose must be invented and imposed on the world by man.
Because of this new "existential situation", Eliade argues, the Sacred becomes the primary obstacle to nonreligious man's "freedom". In viewing himself as the proper maker of history, nonreligious man resists all notions of an externally (e.g., divinely) imposed order or model he must obey: modern man "''makes himself'', and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. [...] He will not truly be free until he has killed the last god".[131]
Ironically, Eliade says, nonreligious man cannot escape his bondage to religious thought. By resisting sacred models, by insisting that man make history on his own, secularism identifies itself only through opposition to religious thought: "He [secular man] recognizes himself in proportion as he 'frees' and 'purifies' himself from the 'superstitions' of his ancestors."[134] Furthermore, modern man "still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals".[135] For example, modern social events still have similarities to traditional initiation rituals, and modern novels feature mythical motifs and themes.[136] Finally, nonreligious man still participates in something like the eternal return: by reading modern literature, "modern man succeeds in obtaining an 'escape from time' comparable to the 'emergence from time' effected by myths".[137]
According to Eliade, modern man displays "traces" of "mythological behavior" because he intensely needs sacred time and the eternal return.[138] Despite modern man's claims to be nonreligious, he ultimately cannot find value in the linear progression of historical events; even modern man feels the "terror of history": "Here too [...] there is always the struggle against Time, the hope to be freed from the weight of 'dead Time,' of the Time that crushes and kills."[139]
According to Eliade, this "terror of history" becomes especially acute when violent and threatening historical events confront modern man. The mere fact that a terrible event has ''happened'', that it is part of history, is of little comfort to those who suffer from it. Eliade asks rhetorically how modern man can "tolerate the catastrophes and horrors of history — from collective deportations and massacres to atomic bombings — if beyond them he can glimpse no sign, no transhistorical meaning".[140]
For ancient man, the Sacred gave history meaning: historical events were seen as repetitions of mythical events, and those mythical events had sacred value. But modern man has denied the Sacred and must therefore invent value and purpose on his own. Without the Sacred to confer an absolute, objective value upon historical events, modern man is left with "a relativistic or nihilistic view of history" and a resulting "spiritual arditiy".[141] In chapter 9 ("Religious Symbolism and the Modern Man's Anxiety") of ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', Eliade argues at length that the rejection of religious thought is a primary cause of modern man's anxieties.
Eliade argues that modern man may escape the terror of history by learning from traditional cultures. For example, Eliade thinks Hinduism has advice for modern Westerners. According to many branches of Hinduism, the world of historical time is illusory, and the only absolute reality is the immortal soul or ''atman'' within man. According to Eliade, Hindus thus escape the terror of history by refusing to see historical time as the true reality.[142]
Eliade notes that a Western philosopher might feel suspicious toward this Hindu view of history:
However, Eliade argues that the Hindu approach to history does not necessarily lead to a rejection of history. On the contrary, in Hinduism historical human existence isn't the "absurdity" that many European philosophers see it as.[143] According to Hinduism, history is a divine creation, and one may live contentedly within it as long as one maintains a certain degree of detachment from it: "One is devoured by Time, by History, not because one lives in them, but because one thinks them ''real'' and, in consequence, one forgets or undervalues eternity."[145] Eliade thinks modern man can escape the terror of history not by ceasing to make history, but by learning from the traditional cultures not to take the history he makes too seriously.
Furthermore, Eliade argues that Westerners can learn from non-Western cultures to see something besides absurdity in suffering and death. Traditional cultures see suffering and death as a rite of passage. In fact, their initiation rituals often involve a symbolic death and resurrection, or symbolic ordeals followed by relief. Thus, Eliade argues, modern man can learn to see his historical ordeals, even death, as necessary initiations into the next stage of one's existence.[146]
Eliade even suggests that traditional thought offers relief from the vague anxiety caused by "our obscure presentiment of the end of the world, or more exactly of the end of ''our'' world, our ''own'' civilization".[146] Many traditional cultures have myths about the end of their world or civilization; however, these myths do not succeed "in paralysing either Life or Culture".[146] These traditional cultures emphasize cyclic time and, therefore, the inevitable rise of a new world or civilization on the ruins of the old. Thus, they feel comforted even in contemplating the end times.[149]
Eliade argues that a Western spiritual rebirth can happen within the framework of Western spiritual traditions.[150] However, he says, to start this rebirth, Westerners may need to be stimulated by ideas from non-Western cultures. In his ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', Eliade claims that a "genuine encounter" between cultures "might well constitute the point of departure for a new humanism, upon a world scale".[151]
As noted above, Eliade sees the Abrahamic religions as a turning point between the ancient, cyclic view of time and the modern, linear view of time. In these religions, sacred events are not limited to a far-off primordial age, but continue throughout history: "time is no longer [only] the circular Time of the Eternal Return; it has become linear and irreversible Time".[152]
Eliade sees Christianity as the ultimate example of a religion embracing linear, historical time. When God is born as a man, into the stream of history, "all history becomes a theophany".[153] According to Eliade, "Christianity strives to ''save'' history".[154] In Christianity, the Sacred enters a human being (Christ) to save humans, but it also enters history to "save" history and turn otherwise ordinary, historical events into something "capable of transmitting a trans-historical message".[154]
From Eliade's perspective, Christianity's "trans-historical message" may be the most important help that modern man could have in confronting the terror of history. In his book ''Mito'' ("Myth"), Furio Jesi argues that Eliade denies man the position of a true protagonist in history: for Eliade, true human experience lies not in intellectually "making history", but in man's experiences of joy and grief. Thus, from Eliade's perspective, the Christ story becomes the perfect myth for modern man. According to Christianity, God willingly entered historical time by being born as Christ, and accepted the suffering that followed. By identifying with Christ, modern man can learn to confront painful historical events.[156]
Ultimately, according to Jesi,[157] Eliade sees Christianity as the only religion that can save man from the "terror of history". According to Eliade, traditional man sees time as an endless repetition of mythical archetypes (models). In contrast, modern man has abandoned mythical archetypes and entered linear, historical time. Unlike many other religions, Christianity attributes value to historical time. Thus, Eliade concludes, "Christianity incontestably proves to be the religion of 'fallen man'", of modern man who has lost "the paradise of archetypes and repetition".[158]
Eliade cites a wide variety of myths and rituals to support his theories. However, he has been accused of making over-generalizations: many scholars think he lacks sufficient evidence to put forth his ideas as universal, or even general, principles of religious thought. According to one scholar, "Eliade may have been the most popular and influential contemporary historian of religion", but "many, if not most, specialists in anthropology, sociology, and even history of religions have either ignored or quickly dismissed" Eliade's works.[159]
The classicist G. S. Kirk criticizes Eliade's insistence that Australian Aborigines and ancient Mesopotamians had concepts of "being", "non-being", "real", and "becoming", although they lacked words for them. Kirk also believes that Eliade overextends his theories: for example, Eliade claims that the modern myth of the "noble savage" results from the religious tendency to idealize the primordial, mythical age.[160] According to Kirk, "such extravagances, together with a marked repetitiousness, have made Eliade unpopular with many anthropologists and sociologists".[160] According to Kirk, Eliade derived his theory of eternal return from the functions of Australian Aboriginal mythology and then proceeded to apply the theory to other mythologies to which it did not apply. For example, Kirk argues that the eternal return does not accurately describe the functions of Native American or Greek mythology.[162] Kirk concludes, "Eliade's idea is a valuable perception about certain myths, not a guide to the proper understanding of all of them".[163]
Even Wendy Doniger, Eliade's successor at the University of Chicago, claims (in an introduction to Eliade's own ''Shamanism'') that the eternal return does not apply to all myths and rituals, although it may apply to many of them.[164] However, although Doniger agrees that Eliade made over-generalizations, she notes that his willingness to "argue boldly for universals" allowed him to see patterns "that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history".[165] Whether they were true or not, she argues, Eliade's theories are still useful "as starting points for the comparative study of religion". She also argues that Eliade's theories have been able to accommodate "new data to which Eliade did not have access".[166]
Several researchers have criticized Eliade's work as having no empirical support. Thus, he is said to have "failed to provide an adequate methodology for the history of religions and to establish this discipline as an empirical science",[167] though the same critics admit that "the history of religions should not aim at being an empirical science anyway". Specifically, his claim that the sacred is a structure of human consciousness is distrusted as not being empirically provable: "no one has yet turned up the basic category ''sacred''".[168] Also, there has been mention of his tendency to ignore the social aspects of religion.[39] Anthropologist Alice Kehoe is highly critical of Eliade's work on Shamanism, namely because he was not an anthropologist but a historian. She contends that Eliade never did any field work or contacted any indigenous groups that practiced Shamanism, and that his work was synthesized from various sources without being supported by direct field research.[170]
In contrast, Professor Kees W. Bolle of the University of California, Los Angeles argues that "Professor Eliade's approach, in all his works, is empirical":[171] Bolle sets Eliade apart for what he sees as Eliade's particularly close "attention to the various particular motifs" of different myths.[171]
Although his scholarly work was never subordinated to his early political beliefs, the school of thought he was associated with in interwar Romania, namely ''Trăirism'', as well as the works of Evola he continued to draw inspiration from, has thematic links to Fascism;[173] Writer and academic Marcel Tolcea has argued that, through Evola's particular interpretation of Guénon's works, Eliade kept a traceable connection with far right ideologies in his academic contribution.[41] Evola, who continued to defend the core principles of mystical fascism, once protested to Eliade about the latter's failure to cite him and Guénon. Eliade replied that his works were written for a contemporary public, and not to initiates of esoteric circles.[175] After the 1960s, he, together with Evola, Louis Rougier, and other intellectuals, offered support to Alain de Benoist's controversial ''Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne'', part of the ''Nouvelle Droite'' intellectual trend.[176]
Notably, Eliade was also preoccupied with the cult of Zalmoxis and its supposed monotheism.[177] His conclusions regarding Dacian history (arguing that Romanization was superficial inside Roman Dacia) have been celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronist nationalism.[178]
The early years in Eliade's public career show him to have been highly tolerant of Jews in general, and of the Jewish minority in Romania in particular. His early condemnation of Nazi anti-Semitic policies was accompanied by his caution and moderation in regard to Nae Ionescu's various anti-Jewish attacks.[179]
Mihail Sebastian claimed in his ''Journal'' that Eliade's actions during the 1930s show him to be an anti-Semite. According to Sebastian, who was Jewish, Eliade had been friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties.[180] Before their friendship came apart, however, Sebastian claimed that he took notes on their conversations (which he later published) during which Eliade was supposed to have expressed anti-Semitic views. According to Sebastian, Eliade said in 1939:
Later, Eliade expressed his regret at not having had the chance to redeem his friendship with Sebastian, before the latter was killed in a car accident.[33]
Beyond his involvement with a movement known for its anti-Semitism, Eliade did not usually comment on Jewish issues. However, a text he contributed to ''Vremea'' in 1936 showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard accusations against the Jewish community:
One year later, a text, accompanied by his picture, was featured as answer to an inquiry by the Iron Guard's ''Buna Vestire'' about the reasons he had for supporting the movement. A short section of it summarizes an anti-Jewish attitude:
According to the literary critic Z. Ornea, in the 1980s Eliade denied authorship of the text. He explained the use of his signature, his picture, and the picture's caption, as having been applied by the magazine's editor, Mihail Polihroniade, to a piece the latter had written after having failed to obtain Eliade's contribution; he also claimed that, given his respect for Polihroniade, he had not wished to publicize this matter previously.[186]
A fellow diplomat present in London during Eliade's stay in the city later stated that the latter had identified himself as "a guiding light of [the Iron Guard] movement" and victim of Carol II's repression.[187] The depolitisation of Eliade after the start of his diplomatic career was also mistrusted by his former close friend Eugène Ionesco, who indicated that, upon the close of World War II, Eliade's personal beliefs as expressed to his friends amounted to "all is over now that «Communism has won»" (this forms part of Ionesco's harsh and succinct review of the careers of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many of them his friends and former friends, in a letter he sent to Tudor Vianu).[188] In August 1954, when Horia Sima, who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, his name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter (although this may have happened without Eliade's consent).[189] During the final years of Eliade's life, his disciple Ioan Petru Culianu exposed and publicly criticized his 1930s pro-Iron Guard activities; relations between the two soured as a result.[190]
Further criticism of his political involvement with anti-Semitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Daniel Dubuisson, Florin Ţurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's anti-Semitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary anti-Semites, such as the Italian Fascist occultist Julius Evola. Volovici, for example, is critical of Eliade not only because of his support for the Iron Guard, but also for spreading anti-Semitism and anti-Masonry in 1930s Romania.[191]
Other scholars, like Bryan S. Rennie, have claimed that there is, to date, no evidence of Eliade's membership, active services rendered, or of any real involvement with any fascist or totalitarian movements or membership organizations, nor that there is any evidence of his continued support for nationalist ideals after their inherently violent nature was revealed. They further assert that there is no imprint of overt political beliefs in Eliade's scholarship, and also claim that Eliade's critics are following political agendas.[192]
Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims.[193] On another occasion, he is known to have denied ever having contributed to ''Buna Vestire''.[39]
An endowed chair in the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School was named after Eliade in recognition of his wide contribution to the research on this subject; the current (and first incumbent) holder of this chair is Wendy Doniger.
To evaluate the legacy of Eliade and Joachim Wach within the discipline of the history of religions, the University of Chicago chose 2006 (the intermediate year between the 50th anniversary of Wach's death and the 100th anniversary of Eliade's birth), to hold a two-day conference in order to reflect upon their academic contributions and their political lives in their social and historical contexts, as well as the relationship between their works and their lives.
In 1990, after the Romanian Revolution, Eliade was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. In Romania, Mircea Eliade's legacy in the field of the history of religions is mirrored by the journal ''Archaeus'' (founded 1997, and affiliated with the University of Bucharest Faculty of History). The 6th European Association for the Study of Religion and International Association for the History of Religions Special Conference on ''Religious History of Europe and Asia'' took place from September 20 to September 23, 2006, in Bucharest. An important section of the Congress was dedicated to the memory of Mircea Eliade, whose legacy in the field of history of religions was scrutinized by various scholars, some of whom were his direct students at the University of Chicago.[195]
A Romanian Television 1 poll nominated him as the 7th Greatest Romanian in history; his case was argued by the writer Dragoş Bucurenci (''see 100 greatest Romanians''). Mircea Eliade's name was given to a boulevard in northern Bucharest, to a street in Cluj-Napoca, and to high schools in Bucharest, Sighişoara, and Reşiţa.
In the 1988 film ''The Bengali Night'', the European character based on Eliade is played by British actor Hugh Grant; Supriya Pathak is Gayatri, a character based on Maitreyi Devi (who had refused to be mentioned by name). The film, considered "pornographic" by Hindu activists, was only shown once in India.
In 2000, Saul Bellow published his controversial ''Ravelstein'' novel. Having for its setting the University of Chicago, it had among its characters Radu Grielescu, who was indicated by several critics as Eliade. The latter's portrayal, accomplished through statements made by the eponymous character, is polemical: Grielescu, who is identified as a disciple of Nae Ionescu, took part in the Bucharest Pogrom, and is in Chicago as a refugee scholar, searching for the friendship of a Jewish colleague as a means to rehabilitate himself.[196] In 2005, the Romanian literary critic and translator Antoaneta Ralian, who was an acquaintance of Bellow's, argued that much of the negative portrayal was owed to a personal choice Bellow made (after having divorced from Alexandra Bagdasar, his Romanian wife and Eliade disciple).[197] She also mentioned that, during a 1979 interview, Bellow had expressed admiration for Eliade.
Eliade has never been a protagonist in a cinema production. Following is a list of films based on, or referring to, his works.
★ ''Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du Sacré'' (1987), part of the television series ''Architecture et Géographie sacrée'', by Paul Barbă Neagră
★ ''The Bengali Night'' (1988), by Nicolas Klotz (based upon the French translation of his novel, ''Maitreyi'').
★ ''Domnişoara Christina'' (1996), by Viorel Sergovici
★ ''Eu Adam'' (1996), by Dan Piţa
★ ''Youth Without Youth'' (2007), by Francis Ford Coppola
★ Allen, Douglas. 2002. ''Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade''. London: Routledge.
★ Carrasco, David and Law, Jane Marie (eds.). 1985. ''Waiting for the Dawn''. Boulder: Westview Press.
★ Culianu, Ioan Petru. 1978. ''Mircea Eliade''. Assisi: Citadela Editrice
★ Dadosky, John D. 2004. ''The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Dudley, Guilford. 1977. ''Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade & His Critics''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
★ Ellwood, Robert S. 1999. ''The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Laignel-Lavastine, Alexandra. 2002. ''Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco - L'oubli du fascisme''. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France-Perspectives critiques.
★ McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. ''Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia''. New York: Oxford University Press.
★ Olson, Carl. 1992. ''The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre''. New York: St Martins Press.
★ Pals, Daniel L. 1996. ''Seven Theories of Religion''. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508725-9
★ Posada, Mihai. 2006. ''Opera publicistică a lui Mircea Eliade''. Bucharest: Editura Criterion. ISBN 978-973-8982-14-7
★ Rennie, Bryan S. 1996. ''Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Rennie, Bryan S. (ed.). 2001. ''Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Simion, Eugen. 2001. ''Mircea Eliade: A Spirit of Amplitude''. Boulder: East European Monographs.
★ Strenski, Ivan. 1987. ''Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History: Cassirer, Eliade, Levi Strauss and Malinowski''. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
★ Tolcea, Marcel. 2002. ''Eliade, ezotericul''. Timişoara: Editura Mirton.
★ Ţurcanu, Florin. 2003. ''Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire''. Paris: Editions La Découverte.
★ Wasserstrom, Steven M. 1999. ''Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos''. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
★ Bibliography of Mircea Eliade
★ History of religions
★ Myth and ritual
1. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
2. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
3. Silviu Mihai, "A doua viaţă a lui Mircea Eliade" ("Mircea Eliade's Second Life"), in ''Cotidianul'', February 6, 2006; retrieved July 31, 2007
4. Steinhardt, in Handoca
5. Constantin Roman, ''Continental Drift: Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures'', CRC Press, Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia, 2000, p.60 ISBN 0750306866
6. Ginu Kamani, "A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi", at the University of Chicago Press website; retrieved July 16, 2007
7. Ross
8. Ross
9. Albert Ribas, "Mircea Eliade, historiador de las religiones" ("Mircea Eliade, Historian of Religions"), in ''El Ciervo. Revista de pensamiento y cultura'', Año 49, Núm. 588 (Marzo 2000), p.35-38; retrieved July 29, 2007
10. Ornea, p.150-151, 153
11. Ornea, p.174-175
12. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.167
13. Ornea, p.445-455
14. Ornea, Chapter IV
15. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.32
16. Eliade, 1936, in Ornea, p.32
17. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.53
18. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.53
19. Eliade, 1927, in Ornea, p.147
20. Eliade, 1935, in Ornea, p.128
21. Eliade, 1934, in Ornea, p.136
22. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.178, 186
23. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.203
24. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.203
25. Ornea, p.202-206; Şimonca
26. Ornea, p.207
27. Ornea, p.207
28. Ornea, p.208-209
29. Ornea, p.209
30. Ornea, p.209
31. Ornea, p.209
32. Eliade, ''Salazar'', in "Eliade despre Salazar", ''Evenimentul Zilei'', October 13, 2002; retrieved July 29, 2007
33. Eliade, in Handoca
34. Eliade, in Handoca; Ross
35. Conference on ''Hermeneutics in History: Mircea Eliade, Joachim Wach, and the Science of Religions''; retrieved July 29, 2007
36. ''România Liberă'', ''passim'' September-October 1944, in Frunză, p.251
37. Frunză, p.448-449
38. Eliade, 1970, in Cernat, "Îmblânzitorul...", p.346
39. Şimonca
40. Şimonca
41. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"
42. Doniger's foreword to Eliade's ''Shamanism'' (Princeton University Press edition, 1972, p.xii)
43. Dumézil, in Eliade, ''Tratat de istorie a religiilor: Introducere'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1992
44. Eliade, ''Patterns in Comparative Religion'', p.1
45. Eliade, ''Comos and History'', p.5
46. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.20-22; ''Shamanism'', p. xiii
47. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.22
48. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
49. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.20
50. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
51. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.6
52. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.15
53. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.34
54. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
55. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.44
56. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.44
57. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.68-69
58. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
59. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
60. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality, p.47-49
61. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', Chapter 4; ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.231-245
62. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 449
63. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 449
64. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 450
65. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 450
66. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p.439
67. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
68. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 439
69. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
70. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
71. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.169
72. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 64-65, 169
73. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p.124
74. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.109
75. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', Volume 2, p.312-14
76. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
77. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 21
78. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.22
79. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
80. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.259-260
81. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.32-36
82. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.40, 42
83. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 44
84. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 43
85. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 39
86. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 22
87. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 29
88. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', pp. 39-40; Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 30
89. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.176
90. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p. 176
91. ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p. 176-77
92. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.138
93. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.134-36
94. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.93-94
95. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.134
96. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
97. ''Shamanism'', p. 3-4
98. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
99. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
100. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.6, 8-9
101. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
102. See, for example, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', pp.82-83
103. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.43
104. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.63
105. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.84
106. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.102
107. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.63
108. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.64
109. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
110. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
111. For example, according to Wendy Doniger ("Foreward to the 2004 Edition", ''Shamanism'', p. xv), Eliade has been accused "of being a crypto-theologian"; however, Doniger argues that Eliade is better characterized as "an open hierogian".
112. Marino, p. 60; Allen, p. 45-46. See the relevant except from Allen here
113. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
114. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
115. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
116. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
117. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 33
118. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 17
119. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 16-17
120. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 5
121. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34. See the relevant excerpt here.
122. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34[1]
123. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34
124. Eliade, quoted in Dadosky, p. 105[2]
125. Dadosky, p. 105
126. Dadosky, p. 106
127. Segal, quoted in Dadosky, p. 105-6
128. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
129. ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
130. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
131. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203
132. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 12; see Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', pp. 20, 145.
133. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203
134. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 204
135. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205
136. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 191
137. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; see also Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192
138. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192
139. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 193
140. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', pp. 151
141. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', pp. 152
142. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 240-41
143. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 241
144. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 241
145. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 242
146. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
147. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
148. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
149. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243-44
150. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 244
151. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 245
152. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 65
153. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 153
154. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 170
155. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 170
156. Jesi, pp. 66-67
157. Jesi, pp. 66-70
158. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 162
159. Douglas Allen, "Eliade and History", in ''Journal of Religion'', 52:2 (1988), p.545
160. Kirk, ''Myth...'', footnote, p.255
161. Kirk, ''Myth...'', footnote, p.255
162. Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', p.64-66
163. Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', p.66
164. Wendy Doniger, "Introduction to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
165. Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xii
166. Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xiii
167. Mac Linscott Ricketts, "Review of ''Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade and His Critics'' by Guilford Dudley III", in ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Vol. 46, No. 3 (September 1978), p.400-402
168. Alles (Alles' italics)
169. Şimonca
170. Alice Kehoe, ''Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking'', Waveland Press, London, 2000, ''passim''. ISBN 1-57766-162-1
171. Bolle, p.14
172. Bolle, p.14
173. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"; Griffin, ''passim''
174. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"
175. Eliade,''Fragments d'un Journal 11, 1970-1978'', Gallimard, Paris 1981, p.194
176. Griffin, p.173; Holmes, p.78
177. Boia, p.152; Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807-809
178. Boia, p.152; Şimonca
179. Ornea, p.408-409, 412
180. Sebastian, ''passim''
181. Sebastian, p. 238
182. Eliade, in Handoca
183. It was popular prejudice in the late 1930s to claim that Ukrainian Jews in the Soviet Union had obtained Romanian citizenship illegally after crossing the border into Maramureş and Bukovina. In 1938, this accusation served as an excuse for the Octavian Goga-A. C. Cuza government to suspend and review all Jewish citizenship guaranteed after 1923, rendering it very difficult to regain (Ornea, p.391). Eliade's mention of Bessarabia probably refers to an earlier period, being his interpretation of a pre-Greater Romania process.
184. Eliade, 1936, in Ornea, p.412-413
185. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.413
186. Ornea, p.206; Ornea is sceptical of these explanations, given both the long period of time spent before Eliade gave them, and especially given the fact that the article itself, despite the haste in which it must have been written, has remarkably detailed references to many articles written by Eliade in various papers over a period of time.
187. Dumitru G. Danielopol, in Şimonca
188. Ionesco, 1945, in Ornea, p.184
189. Ornea, p.210
190. Sorin Antohi, "Exploring the Legacy of Ioan Petru Culianu", in the ''Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen Post'', Newsletter 72, Spring 2001; retrieved July 16, 2007; Ted Anton, "The Killing of Professor Culianu", in ''Lingua Franca'', Volume 2, No. 6 - September/October 1992; retrieved July 29, 2007
191. Leon Volovici, ''Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s'', Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1991, p.104–105, 110–111, 120–126, 134
192. Rennie p.149-177; Ross
193. Ornea, p.202, 208-210, 239-240; Şimonca
194. Şimonca
195. ''The Sixth EASR and IAHR Special Conference''; retrieved July 29, 2007
196. Mircea Iorgulescu, "Portretul artistului ca delincvent politic" ("The Portrait of the Artist as a Political Offender"), Part I, in ''22'', Nr. XIII (637), May 2002; retrieved July 16, 2007
197. Antoaneta Ralian, interviewed on the occasion of Saul Bellow's death, BBC Romania, April 7, 2005 (hosted by hotnews.ro); retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Mircea Eliade:
★
★ ''Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism'' (trans. Philip Mairet), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991
★
★ ''Myth and Reality'' (trans. Willard R. Trask), Harper & Row, New York, 1963
★
★ ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'' (trans. Philip Mairet), Harper & Row, New York, 1967
★
★ ''Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader'', Vol. 2, Ed. Wendell C. Beane and William G. Doty, Harper Colophon, New York, 1976
★
★ ''Patterns in Comparative Religion'', Sheed & Ward, New York, 1958
★
★ ''Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy'', Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004
★
★ ''The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History''. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971
★
★ ''The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion'' (trans. Willard R. Trask), Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1961
★ Douglas Allen, ''Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade'', Routledge, London, 2002
★ Gregory D. Alles, "Review of ''Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade'' by Brian Rennie", in ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Vol. 71, p.466-469
★ Lucian Boia, ''Istorie şi mit în conştiinţa românească'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997 (tr. ''History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness'', Central European University Press, Budapest, 2001)
★ Kees W. Bolle, ''The Freedom of Man in Myth'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 1968
★ Paul Cernat,
★
★ "Îmblânzitorul României Socialiste. De la Bîrca la Chicago şi înapoi" ("The Tamer of Socialist Romania. From Bîrca to Chicago and Back"), in Paul Cernat, Ion Manolescu, Angelo Mitchievici, Ioan Stanomir, ''Explorări în comunismul românesc'' ("Forays into Romanian Communism"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2004, p.346-348
★
★ "Eliade în cheie ezoterică" ("Eliade in Esoterical Key"), review of Marcel Tolcea, ''Eliade, ezotericul'' ("Eliade, the Esoteric"), in ''Observator Cultural''; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Victor Frunză, ''Istoria stalinismului în România'' ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
★ Roger Griffin, ''The Nature of Fascism'', Routledge, London, 1993
★ Mircea Handoca, ''Convorbiri cu şi despre Mircea Eliade'' ("Conversations with and about Mircea Eliade") on ''Autori'' ("Published Authors") page of the Humanitas publishing house
★ Douglas R. Holmes, ''Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism'', Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000
★ Furio Jesi, ''Mito'', Mondadori, Milan, 1980
★ G. S. Kirk,
★
★ ''Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973.
★
★ ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974
★ Z. Ornea, ''Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească'' ("The 1930s: The Romanian Far Right"), Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995
★ Bryan S. Rennie, ''Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion'', State University of New York, Albany, New York, 1996, ISBN 0-7914-2763-3
★ Kelley L. Ross, ''Mircea Eliade'', on friesian.com; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Mihail Sebastian, ''Journal, 1935-1944: The Fascist Years'', Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2000, ISBN 1-56663-326-5
★ Ovidiu Şimonca, "Mircea Eliade şi 'căderea în lume'" ("Mircea Eliade and 'the Descent into the World'"), review of Florin Ţurcanu, ''Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire'' ("Mircea Elaide. The Prisoner of History"), in ''Observator Cultural''; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Adrian Marino, L’Herméneutique de Mircea Eliade,’ tr.Jean Gouillard, Gallimard, Paris 1981
★ John Daniel Dadosky, ''The Structure of Religious Knowing : Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan'', State University of NY Press, 2004.
★ Biography of Mircea Eliade
★ Books and Writers: Mircea Eliade
★ Mircea Eliade International Literary Society
★ Mircea Eliade, ''From Primitives to Zen''
★ List of Terms Used in Mircea Eliade's ''The Sacred and The Profane''
★ Bryan S. Rennie on Mircea Eliade
★ Joseph G. Muthuraj, ''The Significance of Mircea Eliade for Christian Theology''
★ Mircea Eliade presentation on the "100 Greatest Romanians" site
★ ''Archaeus'' magazine
'Mircea Eliade' ( – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that ''hierophanies'' form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.[1] One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of ''Eternal Return'', which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them. In academia, the Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.[1] His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genre; the best known are the autobiographical novel ''Maitreyi'' (''La Nuit Bengali'' or ''Bengal Nights''), the novella ''Domnişoara Christina'' (''Miss Christina''), and the short stories ''Secretul doctorului Honigberger'' (''The Secret of Dr. Honigberger'') and ''La Ţigănci'' (''With the Gypsy Girls'').
Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society ''Criterion''. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization; his political involvement at the time, as well his other far right connections, were the frequent topic of criticism after World War II.
Remarkable for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected postmortem member of the Romanian Academy.
Biography
Childhood and adolescence
Born in Bucharest, he was the son of Romanian Land Forces officer Gheorghe Eliade (whose original surname was Ieremia).[3] An Orthodox believer, Gheorghe Eliade registered his son's birth four days before the actual date, to coincide with the liturgical calendar feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (''see March 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)''). As a child, Eliade was fascinated with the natural world, which formed the setting of his very first literary attempts. His first work to be published was ''Cum am găsit piatra filosofală'', "How I Found the Philosophers' Stone", printed in 1921, when he was aged 14.
Mircea Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arşavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, and Petre Viforeanu (and several years the senior of Nicolae Steinhardt, who was to satirize his novels under the pen name ''Antisthius'', and who became a close friend of Eliade's).[4] Another one of his colleagues was the future philosopher Constantin Noica.
He joined the Romanian Boy Scouts, and, with a group of friends, designed and sailed a boat on the Danube, from Tulcea to the Black Sea.[5] At the same time, Eliade grew estranged from the educational environment, becoming disenchanted with the discipline required and obsessed with the idea that he was uglier and less virile than his colleagues. In order to cultivate his willpower, he would force himself to swallow insects. At one point, Eliade was flunking four subjects, among which was the study of Romanian language. Instead, he became interested in natural science and chemistry, as well as the occult, and, despite his father's concern that he was in danger of losing his already weak eyesight, read passionately. One of his favorite authors was Honoré de Balzac, whose work he studied carefully. Eliade wrote his debut volume, the autobiographical ''Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent'' (influenced by the literature of Giovanni Papini, particularly his ''Un uomo finito''); it was completed in 1925.
University studies
He graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in 1928, earning his diploma with a study on ''Italian Philosophy from Marsilio Ficino to Giordano Bruno'', and subsequently traveled to Italy, where he met Papini and collaborated with the scholar Giuseppe Tucci. It was during his student years that Eliade would meet Nae Ionescu, who lectured in Logic, becoming one of his disciples and friends. He was especially attracted to Ionescu's radical ideas and his interest in religion, which signified a break with the rationalist tradition represented by senior academics such as Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Dimitrie Gusti, and Tudor Vianu (all of whom owed inspiration to the defunct literary society ''Junimea'', albeit in varying degrees).
Eliade's scholarly works began after a long period of study in British India, at the University of Calcutta. Finding that the Maharaja of Kassimbazar sponsored European scholars to study in India, Eliade applied and was granted an allowance for four years. In 1928 he sailed for Calcutta to study Sanskrit and philosophy under Surendranath Dasgupta, a Bengali Cambridge alumnus and professor at Calcutta University, the author of a five volume ''History of Indian Philosophy''. While living with Dasgupta, Eliade fell in love with his daughter, Maitreyi Devi, later writing a barely-disguised autobiographical novel ''Maitreyi'' (also known as ''La Nuit Bengali'' or ''Bengal Nights''), in which he claimed that he carried on a physical relationship with her.[6] When she became aware of this account, she contested it in her own novel ''Na Hanyate'', written in Bengali (the title in English is ''It Does Not Die'').
At the time, he became interested in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met personally,[7] and the ''Satyagraha'' as a phenomenon; later, Eliade adapted Gandhist ideas in his discourse on spirituality and Romania.[7] He received his PhD with a thesis on Yoga practices.[9]
Interwar activities
After contributing various and generally polemical pieces in university magazines, Eliade came to the attention of journalist Pamfil Şeicaru, who invited him to collaborate on the nationalist paper ''Cuvântul'', which was noted for its harsh tones. By then, ''Cuvântul'' was also hosting articles by Ionescu.
As one of the figures in the ''Criterion'' literary society (1933-1934), Eliade's initial encounter with the traditional far right was polemical: the group's conferences were stormed by members of A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League, who objected to what they viewed as pacifism and addressed anti-Semitic insults to several speakers, including Mihail Sebastian;[10] in 1933, he was among the signers of a manifesto opposing Nazi Germany's state-enforced racism.[11] Eliade's views at the time focused on innovation — in the summer of 1933, he replied to an anti-modernist critique written by George Călinescu:
"All I wish for is a deep change, a complete transformation. But, for God's sake, in any direction other than spirituality".[12]In 1936, Eliade was the focus of a press campaign in the far right press, being targeted for having authored "pornography" in his ''Domnişoara Christina'' and ''Isabel şi apele diavolului'' (similar accusations were aimed at other cultural figures, including Tudor Arghezi and Geo Bogza).[13]
However, while a professor at the University of Bucharest (1933-1939), Eliade became active in nationalist politics. He and friends Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica were by then under the influence of ''Trăirism'', a school of thought that was formed around the ideals expressed by Ionescu. A form of existentialism, ''Trăirism'' was also the synthesis of traditional and newer right-wing beliefs.[14]
Eliade's articles before and after his adherence to the principles of the Iron Guard (or, as it was usually known at the time, the ''Legionary Movement''), beginning with his famous ''Itinerar spiritual'' ("Spiritual itinerary", serialized in ''Cuvântul'' in 1927), center on several political ideals advocated by the far right. They displayed his rejection of liberalism and the modernizing goals of the 1848 Wallachian revolution (perceived as "an abstract apology of Mankind"[15] and "ape-like imitation of [Western] Europe"),[16] as well as for democracy itself (accusing it of "managing to crush all attempts at national renaissance",[17] and later praising Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy on the grounds that, according to Eliade, "[in Italy,] he who thinks for himself is promoted to the highest office in the shortest of times").[17] He approved of an ethnic nationalist state centered on the Romanian Orthodox Church (in 1927, despite his still-vivid interest in Theosophy, he recommended young intellectuals "the return to the Church"),[19] which he opposed to, among others, the secular nationalism of Constantin Rădulescu-Motru;[20] referring to this particular ideal as "Romanianism", Eliade was, in 1934, still viewing it as "neither fascism, nor chauvinism".[21] Eliade was especially dissatisfied with the incidence of unemployment among intellectuals, whose careers in state-financed institutions had been rendered uncertain by the Great Depression.[22]
By 1937, he gave his intellectual support to the Iron Guard, in which he saw "a Christian revolution aimed at creating a new Romania",[23] and a group able "to reconcile Romania with God".[23] His articles of the time, published in Iron Guard papers such as ''Sfarmă Piatră'' and ''Buna Vestire'', contain ample praises of the movement's leaders (Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Ion Moţa, Vasile Marin, and Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul).[25] He eventually enrolled in the ''Totul pentru Ţară'' ("Everything for the Fatherland" Party), the political expression of the Iron Guard,[26] and contributed to its 1937 electoral campaign in Prahova County — as indicated by his inclusion on a list of party members with county-level responsibilities (published in ''Buna Vestire'').[26]
Internment and diplomatic service
The stance taken by Eliade resulted in his arrest on July 14, 1938 after a crackdown on the Iron Guard authorized by King Carol II. At the time of his arrest, he had just interrupted a column on ''Provincia şi legionarismul'' ("The Province and the Iron Guard's ideology") in ''Vremea'', having been singled out by Prime Minister Armand Călinescu as an author of Iron Guard propaganda.[28]
Eliade was kept for three weeks in a cell at the ''Siguranţa Statului'' Headquarters, in an attempt to have him sign a "declaration of dissociation" with the Iron Guard, but he refused to do so.[29] In the first week of August he was transferred to a makeshift camp at Miercurea-Ciuc. When Eliade began coughing blood in October 1938, he was taken to a clinic in Moroeni.[29] Eliade was simply released on November 12 and, with the help of Alexandru Rosetti, became the cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, a posting cut short when Romanian-British foreign relations were broken.[29]
After leaving London he retained the same position in Portugal, where he was kept on as diplomat by the National Legionary State (the Iron Guard government) and, ultimately, by Ion Antonescu's regime. In 1942, Eliade authored a volume in praise of the ''Estado Novo'', established in Portugal by António de Oliveira Salazar, alleging that "The Salazarian state, a Christian and totalitarian one, is first and foremost based on love".[32] On July 7 of the same year, he was received by Salazar himself, who asked assigned Eliade the task of warning Antonescu to withdraw the Romanian Army from the Eastern Front ("[In his place], I would not be grinding it in Russia").[33] Eliade also claimed that such contacts with the leader of a neutral country had made him the target for Gestapo surveillance, but that he had managed to communicate Salazar's advice to Mihai Antonescu, Romania's Foreign Minister.[34]
Exile
At signs that the Romanian communist regime was about to take hold, Eliade opted not to return to the country. He lived in France, where, recommended by Georges Dumézil, he taught at the ''École Pratique des Hautes Études'' in Paris. It was estimated that, at the time, it was not uncommon for him to work 15 hours a day.
In 1957, he moved to the United States. He was invited by Joachim Wach to give a series of lectures at Wach's home institution, the University of Chicago, and settled in Chicago. The two scholars are generally admitted to be the founders of the "Chicago school" that basically defined the study of religions for the second half of the 20th century.[35] Upon Wach's untimely death before the lectures were delivered, Eliade was appointed as his replacement, becoming the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions. He also worked as editor-in-chief of Macmillan Publishers' ''Encyclopedia of Religion'', collaborated with Carl Jung and the ''Eranos'' circle, and wrote for the ''Antaios'' magazine (edited by Ernst Jünger).
Initially attacked with virulence by the Romanian Communist Party press, chiefly by ''România Liberă'' (which described him as "the Iron Guard's ideologue, enemy of the working class, apologist of Salazar's dictatorship"),[36] he was slowly rehabilitated beginning in the early 1960s (under the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej).[37] In the 1970s, Eliade was approached by the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime in several ways, in order to have him return. The move was prompted by the officially-sanctioned nationalism and Romania's claim to independence from the Eastern Bloc, as both phenomena came to see Eliade's prestige as an asset. An unprecedented event occurred with the interview that was granted by Mircea Eliade to poet Adrian Păunescu, during the latter's 1970 visit to Chicago; Eliade complimented both Păunescu's activism and his support for official tenets, expressing a belief that
"the youth of Eastern Europe is clearly superior to that of Western Europe. [...] I am convinced that, within ten years, the young revolutionary generation shan't be behaving as does today the noisy minority of Western contesters. [...] Eastern youth have seen the abolition of traditional institutions, have accepted it [...] and are not yet content with the structures enforced, but rather seek to improve them".[38]
Păunescu's visit to Chicago was followed by those of the nationalist official writer Eugen Barbu and by Eliade's friend Constantin Noica.[39] At the time, Eliade contemplated returning to Romania, but was eventually persuaded by fellow Romanian intellectuals in exile (including Radio Free Europe's Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu) to reject Communist proposals.[39] In 1977, he joined other exiled Romanian intellectuals in signing a telegram protesting the repressive measures newly enforced by the Ceauşescu regime.
During his latter years, Eliade's fascist past was progressively exposed publicly, the stress of which probably contributed to the decline of his health. He died in April 1986, four months after a fire destroyed part of his office (an event which he had interpreted as an omen).
The scholar
The general nature of religion
In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is most highly regarded for his writings on Shamanism, Yoga and what he called the eternal return—the implicit belief, supposedly present in religious thought in general, that religious behavior is not only an imitation of, but also a participation in, sacred events, and thus restores the mythical time of origins. Eliade's thinking was in part influenced by Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Nae Ionescu and the writings of the Traditionalist School (René Guénon and Julius Evola).[41] For instance, Eliade's ''The Sacred and the Profane'' partially builds on Otto's ''The Idea of the Holy'' to show how religion emerges from the experience of the sacred, and myths of time and nature.
Eliade is noted for his attempt to find broad, cross-cultural parallels and unities in religion, particularly in myths. Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death, notes that "Eliade argued boldly for universals where he might more safely have argued for widely prevalent patterns".[42] His ''Treatise on the History of Religions'' was praised by French philologist Georges Dumézil for its coherence and ability to synthesize diverse and distinct mythologies.[43]
Sacred and profane
Moses taking off his shoes in front of the burning bush (illustration from a 16th century edition of the ''Speculum Humanae Salvationis'')
Eliade argues that religious thought in general rests on a sharp distinction between the Sacred and the profane;[44] whether it takes the form of God, gods, or mythical Ancestors, the Sacred contains all "reality", or value, and other things acquire "reality" only to the extent that they participate in the sacred.[45]
Eliade's understanding of religion centers on his concept of hierophany (manifestation of the Sacred) — a concept that includes, but is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany (manifestation of a god).[46] From the perspective of religious thought, Eliade argues, hierophanies give structure and orientation to the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of nonreligious experience can only be divided up geometrically: it has no "qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation [is] given by virtue of its inherent structure".[47] Thus, profane space gives man no pattern for his behavior. In contrast to profane space, the site of a hierophany has a sacred structure to which religious man conforms himself. A hierophany amounts to a "revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the nonreality of the vast surrounding expanse".[48] As an example of "sacred space" demanding a certain response from man, Eliade gives the story of Moses halting before Yahweh's manifestation as a burning bush (''Exodus'' 3:5) and taking off his shoes.[49]
Origin myths and sacred time
Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time.[50] According to the myths, this was the time when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the world's structure — myths claim to describe the primordial events that made society and the natural world be that which they are. Eliade argues that all myths are, in that sense, origin myths: "myth, then, is always an account of a 'creation'".[51]
Many traditional societies believe that the power of a thing lies in its origin.[52] If origin is equivalent to power, then "it is the first manifestation of a thing that is significant and valid"[53] (a thing's reality and value therefore lies only in its first appearance).
According to Eliade's theory, only the Sacred has value, only a thing's first appearance has value and, therefore, only the Sacred's first appearance has value. Myth describes the Sacred's first appearance; therefore, the mythical age is sacred time,[50] the only time of value: "primitive man was interested only in the ''beginnings'' [...] to him it mattered little what had happened to himself, or to others like him, in more or less distant times".[55] Eliade postulated this as the reason for the "nostalgia for origins" that appears in many religions, the desire to return to a primordial Paradise.[55]
Eternal return and "Terror of history"
:''Main article: Eternal return (Eliade)''
Eliade argues that traditional man attributes no value to the linear march of historical events: only the events of the mythical age have value. To give his own life value, traditional man performs myths and rituals. Because the Sacred's essence lies only in the mythical age, only in the Sacred's first appearance, any later appearance is actually the first appearance; by recounting or reenacting mythical events, myths and rituals "reactualize" those events.[57]
Thus, argues Eliade, religious behavior does not only commemorate, but also participates in, sacred events:
"In ''imitating'' the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythical hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time."[50]
Eliade called this concept the "eternal return" (distinguished from the philosophical concept of "eternal return"). Wendy Doniger noted that Eliade's theory of the eternal return "has become a truism in the study of religions".[1]
Eliade attributes the well-known "cyclic" vision of time in ancient thought to belief in the eternal return. For instance, the New Year ceremonies among the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, and other Near Eastern peoples reenacted their cosmogonic myths. Therefore, by the logic of the eternal return, each New Year ceremony ''was'' the beginning of the world for these peoples. According to Eliade, these peoples felt a need to return to the Beginning at regular intervals, turning time into a circle.[60]
Eliade argues that yearning to remain in the mythical age causes a "terror of history": traditional man desires to escape the linear succession of events (which, Eliade indicated, he viewed as empty of any inherent value or sacrality). Eliade suggests that the abandonment of mythical thought and the full acceptance of linear, historical time, with its "terror", is one of the reasons for modern man's anxieties.[61] Traditional societies escape this anxiety to an extent, as they refuse to completely acknowledge historical time.
''Coincidentia oppositorum''
Eliade claims that many myths, rituals, and mystical experiences involve a "coincidence of opposites", or ''coincidentia oppositorum''. In fact, he calls the ''coincidentia oppositorum'' "the mythical pattern".[62] Many myths, Eliade notes, "present us with a twofold revelation":
"they express on the one hand the diametrical opposition of two divine figures sprung from one and the same principle and destined, in many versions, to be reconciled at some ''illud tempus'' of eschatology, and on the other, the ''coincidentia oppositorum'' in the very nature of the divinity, which shows itself, by turns or even simultaneously, benevolent and terrible, creative and destructive, solar and serpentine, and so on (in other words, actual and potential)."[62]
Eliade argues that "Yahweh is both kind and wrathful; the God of the Christian mystics and theologians is terrible and gentle at once".[64] He also thought that the Indian and Chinese mystic tried to attain "a state of perfect indifference and neutrality" that resulted in a coincidence of opposites in which "pleasure and pain, desire and repulsion, cold and heat [...] are expunged from his awareness".[64]
According to Eliade, the ''coincidentia oppositorum''’s appeal lies in "man's deep dissatisfaction with his actual situation, with what is called the human condition".[66] In many mythologies, the "fall" out of the mythical age resulted in a fundamental "ontological change in the structure of the World".[67] Because the ''coincidentia oppositorum'' is a contradiction, it represents an abolition of the laws of the "fallen" world.
Also, traditional man's dissatisfaction with the post-mythical age expresses itself as a feeling of being "torn and separate".[68] In many mythologies, the lost mythical age was a Paradise, "a paradoxical state in which the contraries exist side by side without conflict, and the multiplications form aspects of a mysterious Unity".[67] The ''coincidentia oppositorum'' expresses a wish to recover the lost unity of the mythical Paradise, for it presents a reconciliation of opposites and the unification of diversity:
"On the level of presystematic thought, the mystery of totality embodies man's endeavor to reach a perspective in which the contraries are abolished, the Spirit of Evil reveals itself as a stimulant of Good, and Demons appear as the night aspect of the Gods."[67]
Exceptions to the general nature
Eliade acknowledges that not all religious behavior has all the attributes described in his theory of sacred time and the eternal return. The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions embrace linear, historical time as sacred or capable of sanctification, while some Eastern traditions largely reject the notion of sacred time, seeking escape from the cycles of time.
Because they contain rituals, Judaism and Christianity necessarily — Eliade argues — retain a sense of cyclic time:
"''by the very fact that it is a religion'', Christianity had to keep at least one mythical aspect — liturgical Time, that is, the periodic rediscovery of the ''illud tempus'' of the beginnings [and] an ''imitation'' of the Christ as ''exemplary pattern''".[71]
However, Judaism and Christianity do not see time as a circle endlessly turning on itself; nor do they see such a cycle as desirable, as a way to participate in the Sacred. Instead, these religions embrace the concept of linear history progressing toward the Messianic Age or the Last Judgment, thus initiating the idea of "progress" (humans are to work for a Paradise in the future).[72] However, Eliade's understanding of Judaeo-Christian eschatology can also be understood as cyclical in that the "end of time" is a return to God: "The final catastrophe will put an end to history, hence will restore man to eternity and beatitude".[73]
The Dharmic religions of the East generally retain a cyclic view of time — for instance, the Hindu doctrine of ''kalpas''. According to Eliade, most religions that accept the cyclic view of time also embrace it: they see it as a way to return to the sacred time. However, in Buddhism, Jainism, and some forms of Hinduism, the Sacred lies outside the flux of the material world (called ''maya'', or "illusion"), and one can only reach it by escaping from the cycles of time.[74] Because the Sacred lies outside cyclic time, which conditions humans, people can only reach the Sacred by escaping the human condition. According to Eliade, Yoga techniques aim at escaping the limitations of the body, allowing the soul (''atman'') to rise above ''maya'' and reach the Sacred (''nirvana'', ''moksha''). Imagery of "freedom", and of death to one's old body and rebirth with a new body, occur frequently in Yogic texts, representing escape from the bondage of the temporal human condition.[75] Eliade discusses these themes in detail in ''Yoga: Immortality and Freedom''.
Symbolism of the Center
Main articles: Axis mundi
A recurrent theme in Eliade's myth analysis is the ''axis mundi'', the Center of the World. According to Eliade, the Cosmic Center is a necessary corollary to the division of reality into the Sacred and the profane. The Sacred contains all value, and the world gains purpose and meaning only through hierophanies:
"In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation is established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center."[48]
Because profane space gives man no orientation for his life, the Sacred must manifest itself in a hierophany, thereby establishing a sacred site around which man can orient himself. The site of a hierophany establishes a "fixed point, a center".[77] This Center abolishes the "homogeneity and relativity of profane space",[47] for it becomes "the central axis for all future orientation".[48]
A manifestation of the Sacred in profane space is, by definition, an example of something breaking through from one plane of existence to another. Therefore, the initial hierophany that establishes the Center must be a point at which there is contact between different planes — this, Eliade argues, explains the frequent mythical imagery of a Cosmic Tree or Pillar joining Heaven, Earth, and the underworld.[80]
Eliade noted that, when traditional societies found a new territory, they often perform consecrating rituals that reenact the hierophany that established the Center and founded the world.[81] In addition, the designs of traditional buildings, especially temples, usually imitate the mythical image of the ''axis mundi'' joining the different cosmic levels. For instance, the Babylonian ziggurats were built to resemble cosmic mountains passing through the heavenly spheres, and the rock of the Temple in Jerusalem was supposed to reach deep into the ''tehom'', or primordial waters.[82]
According to the logic of the eternal return, the site of each such symbolic Center will actually be the Center of the World:
"It may be said, in general, that the majority of the sacred and ritual trees that we meet with in the history of religions are only replicas, imperfect copies of this exemplary archetype, the Cosmic Tree. Thus, all these sacred trees are thought of as situated at the Centre of the World, and all the ritual trees or posts [...] are, as it were, magically projected into the Centre of the World."[83]
According to Eliade's interpretation, religious man apparently feels the need to live not only near, but ''at'', the mythical Center as much as possible, given that the Center is the point of communication with the Sacred.[84]
Thus, Eliade argues, many traditional societies share common outlines in their mythical geographies. In the middle of the known world is the sacred Center, "a place that is sacred above all";[85] this Center anchors the established order.[86] Around the sacred Center lies the known world, the realm of established order; and beyond the known world is a chaotic and dangerous realm, "peopled by ghosts, demons, [and] 'foreigners' (who are [identified with] demons and the souls of the dead)".[87] According to Eliade, traditional societies place their known world at the Center because (from their perspective) their known world is the realm that obeys a recognizable order, and it therefore must be the realm in which the Sacred manifests itself; the regions beyond the known world, which seem strange and foreign, must lie far from the Center, outside the order established by the Sacred.[88]
The High God
Many pre-agricultural societies hold a vague belief in a supreme sky-god. Like Wilhelm Schmidt's "historico-cultural school" of religious studies, Eliade cites this sky-god as evidence of an earlier "primordial monotheism" (''Urmonotheismus'').[89] This hypothesis is directly opposed to certain schools of thought that see religion evolving linearly from polytheism to monotheism.
However, unlike Schmidt, Eliade cautiously avoids assuming that this primordial monotheism was the very beginning of religion. "At most," he writes, "this schema renders an account of human [religious] evolution since the paleolithic era".[90] Eliade also points out that his hypothetical ''Urmonotheismus'' probably differed in many ways from the conceptions of God in many modern monotheistic faiths: for instance, the primordial High God could manifest himself as an animal without losing his status as a celestial Supreme Being.[91]
Eliade speculates that the discovery of agriculture brought a host of fertility gods and goddesses into the forefront, causing the celestial Supreme Being to fade away and eventually vanish from many ancient religions.[92] Even in the primitive hunter-gatherer societies in which Eliade identifies traces of the ''Urmonotheismus'', the High God is a vague, distant figure, dwelling high above the world. Often he has no cult and receives prayer only as a last resort, when prayers to all other gods have failed.[93] Eliade calls the distant High God a ''deus otiosus'' ("idle god").[94]
In belief systems that involve a ''deus otiosus'', the distant High God is believed to have been closer to humans during the mythical age. After finishing his works of creation, the High God "forsook the earth and withdrew into the highest heaven".[95] This is an example of the Sacred's distance from "profane" life, life lived after the mythical age: by escaping from the profane condition through religious behavior, figures such as the shaman return to the conditions of the mythical age, which include nearness to the High God ("by his ''flight'' or ascension, the shaman [...] meets the God of Heaven face to face and speaks directly to him, as man sometimes did ''in illo tempore''").[96] The shamanistic behaviors surrounding the High God are a particularly clear example of the eternal return.
Shamanism
Overview
Eliade's scholarly work includes a well-known study of shamanism, ''Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy'', a survey of shamanistic practices in different areas. His ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'' also addresses shamanism in some detail.
In ''Shamanism'', Eliade argues for a restrictive use of the word ''shaman'': it should not apply to just any magician or medicine man, as that would make the term redundant; at the same time, he argues against restricting the term to the practitioners of the sacred of Siberia and Central Asia (it is from one of the titles for this function, namely, ''šamán'', considered by Eliade to be of Tungusic origin, that the term itself was introduced into Western languages).[97] Eliade defines a shaman as follows:
"he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians [...] But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be a priest, mystic, and poet".[98]
If we define shamanism this way, Eliade claims, we find that the term covers a collection of phenomena that share a common and unique "structure" and "history".[98] (When thus defined, shamanism tends to occur in its purest forms in hunting and pastoral societies like those of Siberia and Central Asia, which revere a celestial High God "on the way to becoming a ''deus otiosus''".[100] Eliade takes the shamanism of those regions as his most representative example.)
In his examinations of shamanism, Eliade emphasizes the shaman's attribute of regaining man's condition before the "Fall" out of sacred time: "The most representative mystical experience of the archaic societies, that of shamanism, betrays the ''Nostalgia for Paradise'', the desire to recover the state of freedom and beatitude before 'the Fall'."[96] This concern — which, by itself, is the concern of almost all religious behavior, according to Eliade — manifests itself in specific ways in shamanism.
Death, resurrection and secondary functions
According to Eliade, one of the most common shamanistic themes is the shaman's supposed death and resurrection. This occurs in particular during his initiation.[102] Often, the procedure is supposed to be performed by spirits who dismember the shaman and strip the flesh from his bones, then put him back together and revive him. In more than one way, this death and resurrection represents the shaman's elevation above human nature.
First, the shaman dies so that he can rise above human nature on a quite literal level. After he has been dismembered by the initiatory spirits, they often replace his old organs with new, magical ones (the shaman dies to his profane self so that he can rise again as a new, sanctified, being).[103] Second, by being reduced to his bones, the shaman experiences rebirth on a more symbolic level: in many hunting and herding societies, the bone represents the source of life, so reduction to a skeleton "is equivalent to re-entering the womb of this primordial life, that is, to a complete renewal, a mystical rebirth".[104] Eliade considers this return to the source of life essentially equivalent to the eternal return.[105]
Third, the shamanistic phenomenon of repeated death and resurrection also represents a transfiguration in other ways. The shaman dies not once but many times: having died during initiation and risen again with new powers, the shaman can send his spirit out of his body on errands; thus, his whole career consists of repeated deaths and resurrections. The shaman's new ability to die and return to life shows that he is no longer bound by the laws of profane time, particularly the law of death: "the ability to 'die' and come to life again [...] denotes that [the shaman] has surpassed the human condition".[106]
Having risen above the human condition, the shaman is not bound by the flow of history. Therefore, he enjoys the conditions of the mythical age. In many myths, humans can speak with animals; and, after their initiations, many shamans claim to be able to communicate with animals. According to Eliade, this is one manifestation of the shaman's return to "the ''illud tempus'' described to us by the paradisiac myths".[107]
The shaman can descend to the underworld or ascend to heaven, often by climbing the World Tree, the cosmic pillar, the sacred ladder, or some other form of the ''axis mundi''.[108] Often, the shaman will ascend to heaven to speak with the High God. Because the gods (particularly the High God, according to Eliade's ''deus otiosus'' concept) were closer to humans during the mythical age, the shaman's easy communication with the High God represents an abolition of history and a return to the mythical age.[96]
Because of his ability to communicate with the gods and descend to the land of the dead, the shaman frequently functions as a psychopomp and a medicine man.[98]
Eliade's philosophy of religion
By profession, Eliade was a historian of religion. However, his scholarly works draw heavily on philosophical and psychological terminology. In addition, they contain a number of philosophical arguments about religion. Because of these arguments, some have accused Eliade of promoting a theological agenda under the guise of historical scholarship; however, others argue that Eliade is better understood as a scholar who is willing to openly discuss sacred experience and its consequences.[111]
Anti-reductionism and the "transconscious"
In studying religion, Eliade rejects certain "reductionist" approaches.[112] Eliade thinks a religious phenomenon can't be reduced to a product of culture and history. He insists that, although religion involves "the social man, the economic man, and so forth", nonetheless "all these conditioning factors together do not, of themselves, add up to the life of the spirit".[113]
Using this anti-reductionist position, Eliade argues against those who accuse him of overgeneralizing, of looking for universals at the expense of particulars. Eliade admits that every religious phenomenon is shaped by the particular culture and history that produced it:
"When the Son of God incarnated and became the Christ, he had to speak Aramaic; he could only conduct himself as a Hebrew of his times [...] His religious message, however universal it might be, was conditioned by the past and present history of the Hebrew people. If the Son of God had been born in India, his spoken language would have had to conform itself to the structure of the Indian languages."[113]
However, Eliade argues against those he calls "historicist or existentialist philosophers" who do not recognize "man in general" behind particular men produced by particular situations.[113] (Eliade cites Kant as the likely forerunner of this kind of "historicism".[113]) Eliade argues that human consciousness transcends (is not reducible to) its historical and cultural conditioning.[117] He even suggests the possibility of a "transconscious".[118] By this, Eliade does not necessarily mean anything supernatural or mystical: within the "transconscious", he places religious motifs, symbols, images, and nostalgias that are supposedly universal and whose causes therefore can't be reduced to historical and cultural conditioning.[119]
Platonism and "primitive ontology"
According to Eliade, traditional man feels that things "acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality".[120] To traditional man, the profane world is "meaningless", and a thing rises out of the profane world only by conforming to an ideal, mythical model.[121]
Eliade describes this view of reality as a fundamental part of "primitive ontology".[122] (Ontology is the study of "existence" or "reality".) Here he sees a similarity with the philosophy of Plato, who believed that physical phenomena are pale and transient imitations of eternal models or "Forms":
"Plato could be regarded as the outstanding philosopher of 'primitive mentality,' that is, as the thinker who succeeded in giving philosophic currency and validity to the modes of life and behavior of archaic humanity."[123]
Eliade thinks the Platonic Theory of Forms is "primitive ontology" persisting in Greek philosophy. He claims that Platonism is the "most fully elaborated" version of this primitive ontology.[124]
In ''The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan'', John Daniel Dadosky argues that, by making this statement, Eliade was acknowledging "indebtedness to Greek philosophy in general, and to Plato's theory of forms specifically, for his own theory of archetypes [i.e., ideal models] and repetition".[125] However, Dadosky also states that "one should be cautious when trying to assess Eliade's indebtedness to Plato".[126] Dadosky quotes Robert Segal, a professor of religion, who draws a distinction between Platonism and Eliade's "primitive ontology": for Eliade, the ideal models are patterns that a person or object may or may not imitate; for Plato, there is a Form for everything, and everything imitates a Form by the very fact that it exists.[127]
Existentialism and secularism
Behind the diverse cultural forms of different religions, Eliade proposes a universal: traditional man, he claims, "always believes that there is an absolute reality, ''the sacred'', which transcends this world but manifests itself in this world, thereby sanctifying it and making it real".[128] Furthermore, traditional man's behavior gains purpose and meaning through the Sacred: "By imitating divine behavior, man puts and keeps himself close to the gods — that is, in the real and the significant."[129]
According to Eliade, "modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation".[128] For traditional man, historical events gain significance by imitating sacred, transcendent events. In contrast, nonreligious man "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and refuses all appeal to transcendence".[131] In other words, nonreligious man lacks sacred models for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed. From the standpoint of religious thought, the world has an objective purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: "Myth teaches [religious man] the primordial 'stories' that have constituted him existentially."[132] From the standpoint of secular thought, any purpose must be invented and imposed on the world by man.
Because of this new "existential situation", Eliade argues, the Sacred becomes the primary obstacle to nonreligious man's "freedom". In viewing himself as the proper maker of history, nonreligious man resists all notions of an externally (e.g., divinely) imposed order or model he must obey: modern man "''makes himself'', and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. [...] He will not truly be free until he has killed the last god".[131]
Ironically, Eliade says, nonreligious man cannot escape his bondage to religious thought. By resisting sacred models, by insisting that man make history on his own, secularism identifies itself only through opposition to religious thought: "He [secular man] recognizes himself in proportion as he 'frees' and 'purifies' himself from the 'superstitions' of his ancestors."[134] Furthermore, modern man "still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals".[135] For example, modern social events still have similarities to traditional initiation rituals, and modern novels feature mythical motifs and themes.[136] Finally, nonreligious man still participates in something like the eternal return: by reading modern literature, "modern man succeeds in obtaining an 'escape from time' comparable to the 'emergence from time' effected by myths".[137]
Modern man and the "terror of history"
According to Eliade, modern man displays "traces" of "mythological behavior" because he intensely needs sacred time and the eternal return.[138] Despite modern man's claims to be nonreligious, he ultimately cannot find value in the linear progression of historical events; even modern man feels the "terror of history": "Here too [...] there is always the struggle against Time, the hope to be freed from the weight of 'dead Time,' of the Time that crushes and kills."[139]
According to Eliade, this "terror of history" becomes especially acute when violent and threatening historical events confront modern man. The mere fact that a terrible event has ''happened'', that it is part of history, is of little comfort to those who suffer from it. Eliade asks rhetorically how modern man can "tolerate the catastrophes and horrors of history — from collective deportations and massacres to atomic bombings — if beyond them he can glimpse no sign, no transhistorical meaning".[140]
For ancient man, the Sacred gave history meaning: historical events were seen as repetitions of mythical events, and those mythical events had sacred value. But modern man has denied the Sacred and must therefore invent value and purpose on his own. Without the Sacred to confer an absolute, objective value upon historical events, modern man is left with "a relativistic or nihilistic view of history" and a resulting "spiritual arditiy".[141] In chapter 9 ("Religious Symbolism and the Modern Man's Anxiety") of ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', Eliade argues at length that the rejection of religious thought is a primary cause of modern man's anxieties.
Inter-cultural dialogue and a "new humanism"
Eliade argues that modern man may escape the terror of history by learning from traditional cultures. For example, Eliade thinks Hinduism has advice for modern Westerners. According to many branches of Hinduism, the world of historical time is illusory, and the only absolute reality is the immortal soul or ''atman'' within man. According to Eliade, Hindus thus escape the terror of history by refusing to see historical time as the true reality.[142]
Eliade notes that a Western philosopher might feel suspicious toward this Hindu view of history:
"One can easily guess what a European historical and existentialist philosopher might reply [...] You ask me, he would say, to 'die to History'; but man is not, and he ''cannot be'' anything else but History, for his very essence is temporality. You are asking me, then, to give up my authentic existence and to take refuge in an abstraction, in pure Being, in the ''atman'': I am to sacrifice my dignity as a creator of History in order to live an a-historic, inauthentic existence, empty of all human content. Well, I prefer to put up with my anxiety: at least, it cannot deprive me of a certain heroic grandeur, that of becoming conscious of, and accepting, the human condition."[143]
However, Eliade argues that the Hindu approach to history does not necessarily lead to a rejection of history. On the contrary, in Hinduism historical human existence isn't the "absurdity" that many European philosophers see it as.[143] According to Hinduism, history is a divine creation, and one may live contentedly within it as long as one maintains a certain degree of detachment from it: "One is devoured by Time, by History, not because one lives in them, but because one thinks them ''real'' and, in consequence, one forgets or undervalues eternity."[145] Eliade thinks modern man can escape the terror of history not by ceasing to make history, but by learning from the traditional cultures not to take the history he makes too seriously.
Furthermore, Eliade argues that Westerners can learn from non-Western cultures to see something besides absurdity in suffering and death. Traditional cultures see suffering and death as a rite of passage. In fact, their initiation rituals often involve a symbolic death and resurrection, or symbolic ordeals followed by relief. Thus, Eliade argues, modern man can learn to see his historical ordeals, even death, as necessary initiations into the next stage of one's existence.[146]
Eliade even suggests that traditional thought offers relief from the vague anxiety caused by "our obscure presentiment of the end of the world, or more exactly of the end of ''our'' world, our ''own'' civilization".[146] Many traditional cultures have myths about the end of their world or civilization; however, these myths do not succeed "in paralysing either Life or Culture".[146] These traditional cultures emphasize cyclic time and, therefore, the inevitable rise of a new world or civilization on the ruins of the old. Thus, they feel comforted even in contemplating the end times.[149]
Eliade argues that a Western spiritual rebirth can happen within the framework of Western spiritual traditions.[150] However, he says, to start this rebirth, Westerners may need to be stimulated by ideas from non-Western cultures. In his ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', Eliade claims that a "genuine encounter" between cultures "might well constitute the point of departure for a new humanism, upon a world scale".[151]
Christianity and the "salvation" of History
As noted above, Eliade sees the Abrahamic religions as a turning point between the ancient, cyclic view of time and the modern, linear view of time. In these religions, sacred events are not limited to a far-off primordial age, but continue throughout history: "time is no longer [only] the circular Time of the Eternal Return; it has become linear and irreversible Time".[152]
Eliade sees Christianity as the ultimate example of a religion embracing linear, historical time. When God is born as a man, into the stream of history, "all history becomes a theophany".[153] According to Eliade, "Christianity strives to ''save'' history".[154] In Christianity, the Sacred enters a human being (Christ) to save humans, but it also enters history to "save" history and turn otherwise ordinary, historical events into something "capable of transmitting a trans-historical message".[154]
From Eliade's perspective, Christianity's "trans-historical message" may be the most important help that modern man could have in confronting the terror of history. In his book ''Mito'' ("Myth"), Furio Jesi argues that Eliade denies man the position of a true protagonist in history: for Eliade, true human experience lies not in intellectually "making history", but in man's experiences of joy and grief. Thus, from Eliade's perspective, the Christ story becomes the perfect myth for modern man. According to Christianity, God willingly entered historical time by being born as Christ, and accepted the suffering that followed. By identifying with Christ, modern man can learn to confront painful historical events.[156]
Ultimately, according to Jesi,[157] Eliade sees Christianity as the only religion that can save man from the "terror of history". According to Eliade, traditional man sees time as an endless repetition of mythical archetypes (models). In contrast, modern man has abandoned mythical archetypes and entered linear, historical time. Unlike many other religions, Christianity attributes value to historical time. Thus, Eliade concludes, "Christianity incontestably proves to be the religion of 'fallen man'", of modern man who has lost "the paradise of archetypes and repetition".[158]
Criticism of Eliade's scholarship
Overgeneralization
Eliade cites a wide variety of myths and rituals to support his theories. However, he has been accused of making over-generalizations: many scholars think he lacks sufficient evidence to put forth his ideas as universal, or even general, principles of religious thought. According to one scholar, "Eliade may have been the most popular and influential contemporary historian of religion", but "many, if not most, specialists in anthropology, sociology, and even history of religions have either ignored or quickly dismissed" Eliade's works.[159]
The classicist G. S. Kirk criticizes Eliade's insistence that Australian Aborigines and ancient Mesopotamians had concepts of "being", "non-being", "real", and "becoming", although they lacked words for them. Kirk also believes that Eliade overextends his theories: for example, Eliade claims that the modern myth of the "noble savage" results from the religious tendency to idealize the primordial, mythical age.[160] According to Kirk, "such extravagances, together with a marked repetitiousness, have made Eliade unpopular with many anthropologists and sociologists".[160] According to Kirk, Eliade derived his theory of eternal return from the functions of Australian Aboriginal mythology and then proceeded to apply the theory to other mythologies to which it did not apply. For example, Kirk argues that the eternal return does not accurately describe the functions of Native American or Greek mythology.[162] Kirk concludes, "Eliade's idea is a valuable perception about certain myths, not a guide to the proper understanding of all of them".[163]
Even Wendy Doniger, Eliade's successor at the University of Chicago, claims (in an introduction to Eliade's own ''Shamanism'') that the eternal return does not apply to all myths and rituals, although it may apply to many of them.[164] However, although Doniger agrees that Eliade made over-generalizations, she notes that his willingness to "argue boldly for universals" allowed him to see patterns "that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history".[165] Whether they were true or not, she argues, Eliade's theories are still useful "as starting points for the comparative study of religion". She also argues that Eliade's theories have been able to accommodate "new data to which Eliade did not have access".[166]
Lack of empirical support
Several researchers have criticized Eliade's work as having no empirical support. Thus, he is said to have "failed to provide an adequate methodology for the history of religions and to establish this discipline as an empirical science",[167] though the same critics admit that "the history of religions should not aim at being an empirical science anyway". Specifically, his claim that the sacred is a structure of human consciousness is distrusted as not being empirically provable: "no one has yet turned up the basic category ''sacred''".[168] Also, there has been mention of his tendency to ignore the social aspects of religion.[39] Anthropologist Alice Kehoe is highly critical of Eliade's work on Shamanism, namely because he was not an anthropologist but a historian. She contends that Eliade never did any field work or contacted any indigenous groups that practiced Shamanism, and that his work was synthesized from various sources without being supported by direct field research.[170]
In contrast, Professor Kees W. Bolle of the University of California, Los Angeles argues that "Professor Eliade's approach, in all his works, is empirical":[171] Bolle sets Eliade apart for what he sees as Eliade's particularly close "attention to the various particular motifs" of different myths.[171]
Far right and nationalist influences
Although his scholarly work was never subordinated to his early political beliefs, the school of thought he was associated with in interwar Romania, namely ''Trăirism'', as well as the works of Evola he continued to draw inspiration from, has thematic links to Fascism;[173] Writer and academic Marcel Tolcea has argued that, through Evola's particular interpretation of Guénon's works, Eliade kept a traceable connection with far right ideologies in his academic contribution.[41] Evola, who continued to defend the core principles of mystical fascism, once protested to Eliade about the latter's failure to cite him and Guénon. Eliade replied that his works were written for a contemporary public, and not to initiates of esoteric circles.[175] After the 1960s, he, together with Evola, Louis Rougier, and other intellectuals, offered support to Alain de Benoist's controversial ''Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne'', part of the ''Nouvelle Droite'' intellectual trend.[176]
Notably, Eliade was also preoccupied with the cult of Zalmoxis and its supposed monotheism.[177] His conclusions regarding Dacian history (arguing that Romanization was superficial inside Roman Dacia) have been celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronist nationalism.[178]
Controversy: anti-Semitism and links with the Iron Guard
The early years in Eliade's public career show him to have been highly tolerant of Jews in general, and of the Jewish minority in Romania in particular. His early condemnation of Nazi anti-Semitic policies was accompanied by his caution and moderation in regard to Nae Ionescu's various anti-Jewish attacks.[179]
Mihail Sebastian claimed in his ''Journal'' that Eliade's actions during the 1930s show him to be an anti-Semite. According to Sebastian, who was Jewish, Eliade had been friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties.[180] Before their friendship came apart, however, Sebastian claimed that he took notes on their conversations (which he later published) during which Eliade was supposed to have expressed anti-Semitic views. According to Sebastian, Eliade said in 1939:
"The Poles' resistance in Warsaw is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the Germans' sense of scruple. The Germans have no interest in the destruction of Romania. Only a pro-German government can save us.... What is happening on the frontier with Bukovina is a scandal, because new waves of Jews are flooding into the country. Rather than a Romania again invaded by kikes, it would be better to have a German protectorate."[181]
Later, Eliade expressed his regret at not having had the chance to redeem his friendship with Sebastian, before the latter was killed in a car accident.[33]
Beyond his involvement with a movement known for its anti-Semitism, Eliade did not usually comment on Jewish issues. However, a text he contributed to ''Vremea'' in 1936 showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard accusations against the Jewish community:
"Ever since the war [that is, World War I], Jews have invaded villages in Maramureş and Bukovina, and have become an absolute majority in every town in Bessarabia.[183] [...] It would be absurd to expect Jews to resign themselves in order to become a minority with certain rights and very many duties — after they have tasted the honey of power and conquered as many command positions as they have. Jews are currently fighting with all forces to maintain their positions, expecting a future offensive — and, as far as I am concerned, I understand their fight and admire their vitality, tenacity, genius."[184]
One year later, a text, accompanied by his picture, was featured as answer to an inquiry by the Iron Guard's ''Buna Vestire'' about the reasons he had for supporting the movement. A short section of it summarizes an anti-Jewish attitude:
"Can the Romanian kin end its life in the saddest state of decay ever to be known in history, undermined by misery and syphilis, invaded by Jews and torn apart by foreigners, demoralized, betrayed, sold off for some hundreds of millions of lei?"[185]
According to the literary critic Z. Ornea, in the 1980s Eliade denied authorship of the text. He explained the use of his signature, his picture, and the picture's caption, as having been applied by the magazine's editor, Mihail Polihroniade, to a piece the latter had written after having failed to obtain Eliade's contribution; he also claimed that, given his respect for Polihroniade, he had not wished to publicize this matter previously.[186]
A fellow diplomat present in London during Eliade's stay in the city later stated that the latter had identified himself as "a guiding light of [the Iron Guard] movement" and victim of Carol II's repression.[187] The depolitisation of Eliade after the start of his diplomatic career was also mistrusted by his former close friend Eugène Ionesco, who indicated that, upon the close of World War II, Eliade's personal beliefs as expressed to his friends amounted to "all is over now that «Communism has won»" (this forms part of Ionesco's harsh and succinct review of the careers of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many of them his friends and former friends, in a letter he sent to Tudor Vianu).[188] In August 1954, when Horia Sima, who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, his name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter (although this may have happened without Eliade's consent).[189] During the final years of Eliade's life, his disciple Ioan Petru Culianu exposed and publicly criticized his 1930s pro-Iron Guard activities; relations between the two soured as a result.[190]
Further criticism of his political involvement with anti-Semitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Daniel Dubuisson, Florin Ţurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's anti-Semitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary anti-Semites, such as the Italian Fascist occultist Julius Evola. Volovici, for example, is critical of Eliade not only because of his support for the Iron Guard, but also for spreading anti-Semitism and anti-Masonry in 1930s Romania.[191]
Other scholars, like Bryan S. Rennie, have claimed that there is, to date, no evidence of Eliade's membership, active services rendered, or of any real involvement with any fascist or totalitarian movements or membership organizations, nor that there is any evidence of his continued support for nationalist ideals after their inherently violent nature was revealed. They further assert that there is no imprint of overt political beliefs in Eliade's scholarship, and also claim that Eliade's critics are following political agendas.[192]
Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims.[193] On another occasion, he is known to have denied ever having contributed to ''Buna Vestire''.[39]
Legacy
Tributes
An endowed chair in the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School was named after Eliade in recognition of his wide contribution to the research on this subject; the current (and first incumbent) holder of this chair is Wendy Doniger.
To evaluate the legacy of Eliade and Joachim Wach within the discipline of the history of religions, the University of Chicago chose 2006 (the intermediate year between the 50th anniversary of Wach's death and the 100th anniversary of Eliade's birth), to hold a two-day conference in order to reflect upon their academic contributions and their political lives in their social and historical contexts, as well as the relationship between their works and their lives.
In 1990, after the Romanian Revolution, Eliade was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. In Romania, Mircea Eliade's legacy in the field of the history of religions is mirrored by the journal ''Archaeus'' (founded 1997, and affiliated with the University of Bucharest Faculty of History). The 6th European Association for the Study of Religion and International Association for the History of Religions Special Conference on ''Religious History of Europe and Asia'' took place from September 20 to September 23, 2006, in Bucharest. An important section of the Congress was dedicated to the memory of Mircea Eliade, whose legacy in the field of history of religions was scrutinized by various scholars, some of whom were his direct students at the University of Chicago.[195]
A Romanian Television 1 poll nominated him as the 7th Greatest Romanian in history; his case was argued by the writer Dragoş Bucurenci (''see 100 greatest Romanians''). Mircea Eliade's name was given to a boulevard in northern Bucharest, to a street in Cluj-Napoca, and to high schools in Bucharest, Sighişoara, and Reşiţa.
Portrayals
In the 1988 film ''The Bengali Night'', the European character based on Eliade is played by British actor Hugh Grant; Supriya Pathak is Gayatri, a character based on Maitreyi Devi (who had refused to be mentioned by name). The film, considered "pornographic" by Hindu activists, was only shown once in India.
In 2000, Saul Bellow published his controversial ''Ravelstein'' novel. Having for its setting the University of Chicago, it had among its characters Radu Grielescu, who was indicated by several critics as Eliade. The latter's portrayal, accomplished through statements made by the eponymous character, is polemical: Grielescu, who is identified as a disciple of Nae Ionescu, took part in the Bucharest Pogrom, and is in Chicago as a refugee scholar, searching for the friendship of a Jewish colleague as a means to rehabilitate himself.[196] In 2005, the Romanian literary critic and translator Antoaneta Ralian, who was an acquaintance of Bellow's, argued that much of the negative portrayal was owed to a personal choice Bellow made (after having divorced from Alexandra Bagdasar, his Romanian wife and Eliade disciple).[197] She also mentioned that, during a 1979 interview, Bellow had expressed admiration for Eliade.
Eliade in cinema
Eliade has never been a protagonist in a cinema production. Following is a list of films based on, or referring to, his works.
★ ''Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du Sacré'' (1987), part of the television series ''Architecture et Géographie sacrée'', by Paul Barbă Neagră
★ ''The Bengali Night'' (1988), by Nicolas Klotz (based upon the French translation of his novel, ''Maitreyi'').
★ ''Domnişoara Christina'' (1996), by Viorel Sergovici
★ ''Eu Adam'' (1996), by Dan Piţa
★ ''Youth Without Youth'' (2007), by Francis Ford Coppola
Critical works about Mircea Eliade
★ Allen, Douglas. 2002. ''Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade''. London: Routledge.
★ Carrasco, David and Law, Jane Marie (eds.). 1985. ''Waiting for the Dawn''. Boulder: Westview Press.
★ Culianu, Ioan Petru. 1978. ''Mircea Eliade''. Assisi: Citadela Editrice
★ Dadosky, John D. 2004. ''The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Dudley, Guilford. 1977. ''Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade & His Critics''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
★ Ellwood, Robert S. 1999. ''The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Laignel-Lavastine, Alexandra. 2002. ''Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco - L'oubli du fascisme''. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France-Perspectives critiques.
★ McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. ''Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia''. New York: Oxford University Press.
★ Olson, Carl. 1992. ''The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre''. New York: St Martins Press.
★ Pals, Daniel L. 1996. ''Seven Theories of Religion''. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508725-9
★ Posada, Mihai. 2006. ''Opera publicistică a lui Mircea Eliade''. Bucharest: Editura Criterion. ISBN 978-973-8982-14-7
★ Rennie, Bryan S. 1996. ''Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Rennie, Bryan S. (ed.). 2001. ''Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade''. Albany: State University of New York Press.
★ Simion, Eugen. 2001. ''Mircea Eliade: A Spirit of Amplitude''. Boulder: East European Monographs.
★ Strenski, Ivan. 1987. ''Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History: Cassirer, Eliade, Levi Strauss and Malinowski''. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
★ Tolcea, Marcel. 2002. ''Eliade, ezotericul''. Timişoara: Editura Mirton.
★ Ţurcanu, Florin. 2003. ''Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire''. Paris: Editions La Découverte.
★ Wasserstrom, Steven M. 1999. ''Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos''. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
See also
★ Bibliography of Mircea Eliade
★ History of religions
★ Myth and ritual
Notes
1. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
2. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
3. Silviu Mihai, "A doua viaţă a lui Mircea Eliade" ("Mircea Eliade's Second Life"), in ''Cotidianul'', February 6, 2006; retrieved July 31, 2007
4. Steinhardt, in Handoca
5. Constantin Roman, ''Continental Drift: Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures'', CRC Press, Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia, 2000, p.60 ISBN 0750306866
6. Ginu Kamani, "A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi", at the University of Chicago Press website; retrieved July 16, 2007
7. Ross
8. Ross
9. Albert Ribas, "Mircea Eliade, historiador de las religiones" ("Mircea Eliade, Historian of Religions"), in ''El Ciervo. Revista de pensamiento y cultura'', Año 49, Núm. 588 (Marzo 2000), p.35-38; retrieved July 29, 2007
10. Ornea, p.150-151, 153
11. Ornea, p.174-175
12. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.167
13. Ornea, p.445-455
14. Ornea, Chapter IV
15. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.32
16. Eliade, 1936, in Ornea, p.32
17. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.53
18. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.53
19. Eliade, 1927, in Ornea, p.147
20. Eliade, 1935, in Ornea, p.128
21. Eliade, 1934, in Ornea, p.136
22. Eliade, 1933, in Ornea, p.178, 186
23. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.203
24. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.203
25. Ornea, p.202-206; Şimonca
26. Ornea, p.207
27. Ornea, p.207
28. Ornea, p.208-209
29. Ornea, p.209
30. Ornea, p.209
31. Ornea, p.209
32. Eliade, ''Salazar'', in "Eliade despre Salazar", ''Evenimentul Zilei'', October 13, 2002; retrieved July 29, 2007
33. Eliade, in Handoca
34. Eliade, in Handoca; Ross
35. Conference on ''Hermeneutics in History: Mircea Eliade, Joachim Wach, and the Science of Religions''; retrieved July 29, 2007
36. ''România Liberă'', ''passim'' September-October 1944, in Frunză, p.251
37. Frunză, p.448-449
38. Eliade, 1970, in Cernat, "Îmblânzitorul...", p.346
39. Şimonca
40. Şimonca
41. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"
42. Doniger's foreword to Eliade's ''Shamanism'' (Princeton University Press edition, 1972, p.xii)
43. Dumézil, in Eliade, ''Tratat de istorie a religiilor: Introducere'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1992
44. Eliade, ''Patterns in Comparative Religion'', p.1
45. Eliade, ''Comos and History'', p.5
46. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.20-22; ''Shamanism'', p. xiii
47. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.22
48. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
49. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.20
50. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
51. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.6
52. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.15
53. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.34
54. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
55. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.44
56. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.44
57. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.68-69
58. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.23
59. Wendy Doniger, "Foreward to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
60. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality, p.47-49
61. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', Chapter 4; ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.231-245
62. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 449
63. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 449
64. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 450
65. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 450
66. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p.439
67. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
68. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 439
69. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
70. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', p. 440
71. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.169
72. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 64-65, 169
73. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p.124
74. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.109
75. Eliade, ''Myths, Rites, Symbols'', Volume 2, p.312-14
76. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
77. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 21
78. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.22
79. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.21
80. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.259-260
81. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.32-36
82. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p.40, 42
83. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 44
84. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 43
85. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 39
86. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 22
87. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 29
88. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', pp. 39-40; Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 30
89. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.176
90. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p. 176
91. ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p. 176-77
92. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.138
93. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.134-36
94. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p.93-94
95. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.134
96. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
97. ''Shamanism'', p. 3-4
98. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
99. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
100. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.6, 8-9
101. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
102. See, for example, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', pp.82-83
103. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.43
104. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.63
105. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.84
106. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.102
107. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.63
108. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.64
109. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', p.66
110. Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.4
111. For example, according to Wendy Doniger ("Foreward to the 2004 Edition", ''Shamanism'', p. xv), Eliade has been accused "of being a crypto-theologian"; however, Doniger argues that Eliade is better characterized as "an open hierogian".
112. Marino, p. 60; Allen, p. 45-46. See the relevant except from Allen here
113. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
114. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
115. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
116. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32
117. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 33
118. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 17
119. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 16-17
120. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 5
121. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34. See the relevant excerpt here.
122. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34[1]
123. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34
124. Eliade, quoted in Dadosky, p. 105[2]
125. Dadosky, p. 105
126. Dadosky, p. 106
127. Segal, quoted in Dadosky, p. 105-6
128. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
129. ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
130. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202
131. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203
132. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 12; see Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', pp. 20, 145.
133. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203
134. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 204
135. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205
136. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 191
137. Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; see also Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192
138. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192
139. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 193
140. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', pp. 151
141. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', pp. 152
142. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 240-41
143. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 241
144. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 241
145. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 242
146. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
147. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
148. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243
149. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243-44
150. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 244
151. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 245
152. Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 65
153. Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 153
154. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 170
155. Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 170
156. Jesi, pp. 66-67
157. Jesi, pp. 66-70
158. Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 162
159. Douglas Allen, "Eliade and History", in ''Journal of Religion'', 52:2 (1988), p.545
160. Kirk, ''Myth...'', footnote, p.255
161. Kirk, ''Myth...'', footnote, p.255
162. Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', p.64-66
163. Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', p.66
164. Wendy Doniger, "Introduction to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii
165. Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xii
166. Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xiii
167. Mac Linscott Ricketts, "Review of ''Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade and His Critics'' by Guilford Dudley III", in ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Vol. 46, No. 3 (September 1978), p.400-402
168. Alles (Alles' italics)
169. Şimonca
170. Alice Kehoe, ''Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking'', Waveland Press, London, 2000, ''passim''. ISBN 1-57766-162-1
171. Bolle, p.14
172. Bolle, p.14
173. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"; Griffin, ''passim''
174. Cernat, "Eliade în cheie ezoterică"
175. Eliade,''Fragments d'un Journal 11, 1970-1978'', Gallimard, Paris 1981, p.194
176. Griffin, p.173; Holmes, p.78
177. Boia, p.152; Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807-809
178. Boia, p.152; Şimonca
179. Ornea, p.408-409, 412
180. Sebastian, ''passim''
181. Sebastian, p. 238
182. Eliade, in Handoca
183. It was popular prejudice in the late 1930s to claim that Ukrainian Jews in the Soviet Union had obtained Romanian citizenship illegally after crossing the border into Maramureş and Bukovina. In 1938, this accusation served as an excuse for the Octavian Goga-A. C. Cuza government to suspend and review all Jewish citizenship guaranteed after 1923, rendering it very difficult to regain (Ornea, p.391). Eliade's mention of Bessarabia probably refers to an earlier period, being his interpretation of a pre-Greater Romania process.
184. Eliade, 1936, in Ornea, p.412-413
185. Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p.413
186. Ornea, p.206; Ornea is sceptical of these explanations, given both the long period of time spent before Eliade gave them, and especially given the fact that the article itself, despite the haste in which it must have been written, has remarkably detailed references to many articles written by Eliade in various papers over a period of time.
187. Dumitru G. Danielopol, in Şimonca
188. Ionesco, 1945, in Ornea, p.184
189. Ornea, p.210
190. Sorin Antohi, "Exploring the Legacy of Ioan Petru Culianu", in the ''Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen Post'', Newsletter 72, Spring 2001; retrieved July 16, 2007; Ted Anton, "The Killing of Professor Culianu", in ''Lingua Franca'', Volume 2, No. 6 - September/October 1992; retrieved July 29, 2007
191. Leon Volovici, ''Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s'', Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1991, p.104–105, 110–111, 120–126, 134
192. Rennie p.149-177; Ross
193. Ornea, p.202, 208-210, 239-240; Şimonca
194. Şimonca
195. ''The Sixth EASR and IAHR Special Conference''; retrieved July 29, 2007
196. Mircea Iorgulescu, "Portretul artistului ca delincvent politic" ("The Portrait of the Artist as a Political Offender"), Part I, in ''22'', Nr. XIII (637), May 2002; retrieved July 16, 2007
197. Antoaneta Ralian, interviewed on the occasion of Saul Bellow's death, BBC Romania, April 7, 2005 (hosted by hotnews.ro); retrieved July 16, 2007
References
★ Mircea Eliade:
★
★ ''Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism'' (trans. Philip Mairet), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991
★
★ ''Myth and Reality'' (trans. Willard R. Trask), Harper & Row, New York, 1963
★
★ ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'' (trans. Philip Mairet), Harper & Row, New York, 1967
★
★ ''Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader'', Vol. 2, Ed. Wendell C. Beane and William G. Doty, Harper Colophon, New York, 1976
★
★ ''Patterns in Comparative Religion'', Sheed & Ward, New York, 1958
★
★ ''Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy'', Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004
★
★ ''The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History''. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971
★
★ ''The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion'' (trans. Willard R. Trask), Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1961
★ Douglas Allen, ''Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade'', Routledge, London, 2002
★ Gregory D. Alles, "Review of ''Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade'' by Brian Rennie", in ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Vol. 71, p.466-469
★ Lucian Boia, ''Istorie şi mit în conştiinţa românească'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997 (tr. ''History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness'', Central European University Press, Budapest, 2001)
★ Kees W. Bolle, ''The Freedom of Man in Myth'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 1968
★ Paul Cernat,
★
★ "Îmblânzitorul României Socialiste. De la Bîrca la Chicago şi înapoi" ("The Tamer of Socialist Romania. From Bîrca to Chicago and Back"), in Paul Cernat, Ion Manolescu, Angelo Mitchievici, Ioan Stanomir, ''Explorări în comunismul românesc'' ("Forays into Romanian Communism"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2004, p.346-348
★
★ "Eliade în cheie ezoterică" ("Eliade in Esoterical Key"), review of Marcel Tolcea, ''Eliade, ezotericul'' ("Eliade, the Esoteric"), in ''Observator Cultural''; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Victor Frunză, ''Istoria stalinismului în România'' ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
★ Roger Griffin, ''The Nature of Fascism'', Routledge, London, 1993
★ Mircea Handoca, ''Convorbiri cu şi despre Mircea Eliade'' ("Conversations with and about Mircea Eliade") on ''Autori'' ("Published Authors") page of the Humanitas publishing house
★ Douglas R. Holmes, ''Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism'', Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000
★ Furio Jesi, ''Mito'', Mondadori, Milan, 1980
★ G. S. Kirk,
★
★ ''Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973.
★
★ ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974
★ Z. Ornea, ''Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească'' ("The 1930s: The Romanian Far Right"), Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995
★ Bryan S. Rennie, ''Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion'', State University of New York, Albany, New York, 1996, ISBN 0-7914-2763-3
★ Kelley L. Ross, ''Mircea Eliade'', on friesian.com; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Mihail Sebastian, ''Journal, 1935-1944: The Fascist Years'', Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2000, ISBN 1-56663-326-5
★ Ovidiu Şimonca, "Mircea Eliade şi 'căderea în lume'" ("Mircea Eliade and 'the Descent into the World'"), review of Florin Ţurcanu, ''Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire'' ("Mircea Elaide. The Prisoner of History"), in ''Observator Cultural''; retrieved July 16, 2007
★ Adrian Marino, L’Herméneutique de Mircea Eliade,’ tr.Jean Gouillard, Gallimard, Paris 1981
★ John Daniel Dadosky, ''The Structure of Religious Knowing : Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan'', State University of NY Press, 2004.
External links
★ Biography of Mircea Eliade
★ Books and Writers: Mircea Eliade
★ Mircea Eliade International Literary Society
★ Mircea Eliade, ''From Primitives to Zen''
★ List of Terms Used in Mircea Eliade's ''The Sacred and The Profane''
★ Bryan S. Rennie on Mircea Eliade
★ Joseph G. Muthuraj, ''The Significance of Mircea Eliade for Christian Theology''
★ Mircea Eliade presentation on the "100 Greatest Romanians" site
★ ''Archaeus'' magazine
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