Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

====Eternal return and "Terror of history"====
{{Main|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 re-enacting mythical events, myths and rituals "re-actualize" those events.<ref>Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', pp. 68–69</ref> Eliade often uses the term "[[archetype]]s" to refer to the mythical models established by the Sacred, although Eliade's use of the term should be distinguished from the use of the term in [[Jungian psychology]].<ref>Leeming, "Archetypes"</ref>

Thus, argues Eliade, religious behavior does not only commemorate, but also participates in, sacred events:

<blockquote>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.<ref name="Eliade, p.23"/></blockquote>

Eliade called this concept the "[[Eternal return (Eliade)|eternal return]]" (distinguished from the [[Eternal return|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."<ref name="Doniger Forward p.xiii"/>

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 [[Mesopotamia]]ns, the [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptians]], and other [[Ancient Near East|Near Eastern]] peoples re-enacted their [[Cosmogony|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.<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', pp. 47–49</ref>

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.<ref>Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', Chapter 4; ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', pp. 231–245</ref> Traditional societies escape this anxiety to an extent, as they refuse to completely acknowledge historical time. But the return to the sources involved an apocalyptic experience. [[Doina Ruști]], analyzing the story ''The Old Man and The Bureaucrats'' (''Pe strada Mântuleasa''), says  The memories<ref>{{Cite book|last=Doina|first=Ruști|title=Dicționar de simboluri din opera lui Mircea Eliade|publisher=Corint|year=1997|location=Bucuresti|pages=90|language=ro}}</ref> create the chaos, because "the myth makes irruption in a world in tormented birth, without memory, and transform all in a labyrinth".