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Product Description
Product Description
This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's "The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.
About the Author
Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion. The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago, is considerable. Eliade's analysis of religion assumes the existence of "the sacred" as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance, and value. Humanity apprehends "hierophanies"--physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred--often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths, and ritual. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to non-historical time: what Eliade calls illud tempus (Latin for 'that time,' I tend to think of it as 'yon time'). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity.
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THIS book undertakes to study certain aspects of archaic ontology-more precisely, the conceptions of being and reality that can be read from the behavior of the man of the premodern societies. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THIS book undertakes to study certain aspects of archaic ontology-more precisely, the conceptions of being and reality that can be read from the behavior of the man of the premodern societies. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had this on my bookshelf for nearly a year before I was in the right frame of mind to approach this innovative work, and that was after I read "The sacred and the profane". This earlier and broader work sets out many of the same themes, but everything is worth reading several times over. The writing style is a somewhat archaic, but I found it accessible with a little effort - and what rewards await the patient reader! Eliade's erudition is breathtaking but never overbearing. His explanation of the "burden of history", and the "premodern" and modern responses to it, is truly elegant and helped me to understand in a new way the fundamental differences between Western (monotheistic) and Eastern religions - and why Westerners practising Buddhism or Daoism (for example) have difficulty experiencing the "eternal present". The implication, as I see it, is that the pressure of history gradually obliterates the premodern way of experiencing sacredness. I suspect this is a subtle form of historicism, which Eliade rejects, and I'm not sure I agree with his conclusion that "Christianity is the religion of modern man and historical man". Fifty years after Eliade wrote this book, Christianity is looking rather feeble in the face of dominant materialism and vaguely psychologically-based "new age" philosophies. Independent spiritual practitioners reading this book, however, might be inspired to question the dominant myth of progress and live a more immanent spirituality. This book certainly deserves a wide audience and a lively debate.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This little book has managed to influence all discussions about Time not only in religion, but also in psychology (see Norman O. Brown's "Life against Death"), the natural sciences(see Gould's "Time's Arrow"), literary criticism (see Camille Paglia) etc. Eliade's insights into Time are now so pervasive that it becomes de rigueur for this book to be read and relished not just by the scholars of religion, but also by those aspiring to a broader education. Do not be deceived, however, by the book's apparent simplicity; it is only a measure of Eliade's genius that profound insights are offered with the elegance of a true artist.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Originally written in 1954,and is a translation, so the style is not always easily accessible - requires effort to read - but worth it. It is an academic work and source book, packed with many examples from different cultures that the author has studied - often quoted from in other books and discussion papers. Content is the author's observations on the emerging development of religion and belief. Invites the reader to draw their own conclusions. See also "Rites and symbols of initiation: The mysteries of birth and rebirth" and "Shamanism: Archaic techniques of Ectasy" by the same author.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Eliade is deeply original in his analysis, and I found he transformed...
"Myth of the Eternal Return" is typically considered a vital text to anyone interested in sociological,anthropological and psychological approaches to religion. Read more
Published on 20 April 2010 by Red Eyes
Religion as meringue
An English translation of a Romanian author's rather vacuous French speculations about "primordial archetypes. Read more
Published on 21 Sep 1997
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