Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

===Philosopher of religion===

====Anti-reductionism and the "transconscious"====
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. In particular, Eliade often implies the existence of a universal psychological or spiritual "essence" behind all religious phenomena.<ref>Ellwood, pp. 110–111.</ref> Because of these arguments, some have accused Eliade of overgeneralization and "[[essentialism]]", or even 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.{{NoteTag|For example, according to Wendy Doniger (Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xv.), Eliade has been accused "of being a crypto-theologian"; however, Doniger argues that Eliade is better characterized as "an open hierogian". Likewise, Robert Ellwood (Ellwood, p.&nbsp;111) denies that Eliade practiced "covert theology".}}

In studying religion, Eliade rejects certain "[[Reductionism|reductionist]]" approaches.<ref>Douglas Allen, ''Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade'', [[Routledge]], London, 2002, pp. 45–46; [[Adrian Marino]], ''L'Herméneutique de Mircea Eliade'', [[Éditions Gallimard]], Paris, 1981, p. 60.</ref> Eliade thinks a religious phenomenon cannot 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."<ref name="Eliade p.32">Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 32.</ref>

Using this anti-reductionist position, Eliade argues against those who accuse him of overgeneralizing, of looking for [[Universal (metaphysics)|universals]] at the expense of [[particular]]s. Eliade admits that every religious phenomenon is shaped by the particular culture and history that produced it:
<blockquote>When the Son of God incarnated and became the Christ, he had to speak [[Aramaic language|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 [[Languages of India|Indian languages]].<ref name="Eliade p.32"/></blockquote>

However, Eliade argues against those he calls "[[Historicism|historicist]] or [[Existentialism|existentialist]] philosophers" who do not recognize "man in general" behind particular men produced by particular situations<ref name="Eliade p.32"/> (Eliade cites [[Immanuel Kant]] as the likely forerunner of this kind of "historicism".)<ref name="Eliade p.32"/> He adds that human consciousness transcends (is not reducible to) its historical and cultural conditioning,<ref>Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 33.</ref> and even suggests the possibility of a "transconscious".<ref>Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 17.</ref> 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 cannot be reduced to historical and cultural conditioning.<ref>Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', pp. 16–17.</ref>

====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".<ref name="Eliade, p.5">Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 5</ref> 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.<ref name="Eliade, p.34">Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 34</ref>

Eliade describes this view of reality as a fundamental part of "primitive [[ontology]]" (the study of "existence" or "reality").<ref name="Eliade, p.34"/> 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" (''see [[Theory of forms]]''). He argued:
<blockquote>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.<ref name="Eliade, p.34"/></blockquote>

Eliade thinks the [[Platonic realism|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.<ref>Eliade, in Dadosky, p. 105</ref>

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 and repetition".<ref>Dadosky, p. 105</ref> However, Dadosky also states that "one should be cautious when trying to assess Eliade's indebtedness to Plato".<ref>Dadosky, p. 106</ref> 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.<ref>Segal, in Dadosky, pp. 105–106</ref>

====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."<ref name="Eliade, p.202">Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 202</ref> 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."<ref name="Eliade, p.202"/> According to Eliade, "modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation."<ref name="Eliade, p.202"/> For traditional man, historical events gain significance by imitating sacred, transcendent events. In contrast, nonreligious man lacks sacred models for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed—he "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and refuses all appeal to transcendence".<ref name="Eliade, p.203">Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 203</ref>

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."<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 12; see also Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', pp. 20, 145.</ref> From the standpoint of [[Secularism|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 (for instance, 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."<ref name="Eliade, p.203"/>

====Religious survivals in the secular world====
Eliade says that secular man cannot escape his bondage to religious thought. By its very nature, secularism depends on religion for its sense of identity: by resisting sacred models, by insisting that man make history on his own, secular man identifies himself only through opposition to religious thought: "He [secular man] recognizes himself in proportion as he 'frees' and 'purifies' himself from the '[[superstition]]s' of his ancestors."<ref>Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 204</ref> Furthermore, modern man "still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals".<ref>Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205</ref> For example, modern social events still have similarities to traditional initiation rituals, and modern novels feature mythical motifs and themes.<ref>Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; ''Myth and Reality'', p. 191</ref> Finally, secular 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".<ref>Eliade, ''The Sacred and the Profane'', p. 205; see also Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192</ref>

Eliade sees traces of religious thought even in secular academia. He thinks modern scientists are motivated by the religious desire to return to the sacred time of origins:
<blockquote>One could say that the anxious search for the origins of Life and Mind; the fascination in the 'mysteries of Nature'; the urge to penetrate and decipher the inner structure of Matter—all these longings and drives denote a sort of nostalgia for the primordial, for the original universal ''matrix''. Matter, Substance, represents the ''absolute origin'', the beginning of all things.<ref>Eliade, "The Quest for the 'Origins' of Religion", p. 158</ref></blockquote>
Eliade believes the rise of materialism in the 19th century forced the religious nostalgia for "origins" to express itself in science. He mentions his own field of History of Religions as one of the fields that was obsessed with origins during the 19th century:
<blockquote>The new discipline of History of Religions developed rapidly in this cultural context. And, of course, it followed a like pattern: the [[Positivism|positivistic]] approach to the facts and the search for origins, for the very beginning of religion.</blockquote>
<blockquote>All Western historiography was during that time obsessed with the quest of ''origins''. [...] This search for the origins of human institutions and cultural creations prolongs and completes the naturalist's quest for the origin of species, the biologist's dream of grasping the origin of life, the geologist's and the astronomer's endeavor to understand the origin of the Earth and the Universe. From a psychological point of view, one can decipher here the same nostalgia for the 'primordial' and the 'original'.<ref>Eliade, "The Quest for the 'Origins' of Religion", p. 160</ref></blockquote>

In some of his writings, Eliade describes modern political ideologies as secularized mythology. According to Eliade, [[Marxism]] "takes up and carries on one of the great [[eschatological]] myths of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world, namely: the redemptive part to be played by the Just (the 'elect', the 'anointed', the 'innocent', the 'missioners', in our own days the [[proletariat]]), whose sufferings are invoked to change the ontological status of the world."<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'' 1960, pp. 25–26, in Ellwood, pp. 91–92</ref> Eliade sees the widespread myth of the [[Golden Age]], "which, according to a number of traditions, lies at the beginning and the end of History", as the "precedent" for [[Karl Marx]]'s vision of a [[classless society]].<ref name="Myths2526, Ell92">Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'' 1960, pp. 25–26, in Ellwood, p. 92</ref> Finally, he sees Marx's belief in the final triumph of the good (the proletariat) over the evil (the [[bourgeoisie]]) as "a truly messianic Judaeo-Christian ideology".<ref name="Myths2526, Ell92"/> Despite Marx's hostility toward religion, Eliade implies, his ideology works within a conceptual framework inherited from religious mythology.

Likewise, Eliade notes that Nazism involved a [[Nazi occultism|pseudo-pagan mysticism]] based on [[Germanic paganism|ancient Germanic religion]]. He suggests that the differences between the Nazis' pseudo-Germanic mythology and Marx's pseudo-Judaeo-Christian mythology explain their differing success:
<blockquote>In comparison with the vigorous optimism of the communist myth, the mythology propagated by the national socialists seems particularly inept; and this is not only because of the limitations of the racial myth (how could one imagine that the rest of Europe would voluntarily accept submission to the master-race?), but above all because of the fundamental pessimism of the Germanic mythology. [...] For the eschaton prophesied and expected by the ancient Germans was the [[ragnarok]]—that is, a catastrophic end of the world.<ref name="Myths2526, Ell92"/></blockquote>

====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.<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 192</ref> 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."<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 193</ref>

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 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|atomic bombings]]—if beyond them he can glimpse no sign, no transhistorical meaning".<ref>Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 151</ref> He indicates that, if repetitions of mythical events provided sacred value and meaning for history in the eyes of ancient man, 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 [[Relativism|relativistic]] or [[Nihilism|nihilistic]] view of history" and a resulting "spiritual aridity".<ref>Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 152</ref> In chapter 4 ("The Terror of History") of ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'' and 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 (Hinduism)|atman]]'' within man. According to Eliade, Hindus thus escape the terror of history by refusing to see historical time as the true reality.<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', pp. 240–241</ref>

Eliade notes that a [[Western philosophy|Western]] or [[Continental philosophy|Continental]] philosopher might feel suspicious toward this Hindu view of history:
<blockquote>One can easily guess what a European historical and [[Existentialism|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 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.<ref name="Eliade, p. 241">Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 241</ref></blockquote>

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 is not the "absurdity" that many Continental philosophers see it as.<ref name="Eliade, p. 241"/> 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."<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 242</ref> 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.<ref name="Eliade, p.243">Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 243</ref>

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".<ref name="Eliade, p.243"/> 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".<ref name="Eliade, p.243"/> 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.<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', pp. 243–244</ref>

Eliade argues that a Western spiritual rebirth can happen within the framework of Western spiritual traditions.<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 244</ref> 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".<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 245</ref>

====Christianity and the "salvation" of History====
Mircea Eliade sees the [[Abrahamic religion]]s as a turning point between the ancient, cyclic view of time and the modern, linear view of time, noting that, in their case, 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 (Eliade)|Eternal Return]]; it has become linear and irreversible Time".<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', p. 65</ref> He thus sees in Christianity 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]]".<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries'', p. 153</ref> According to Eliade, "Christianity strives to ''save'' history".<ref name="Eliade p.170">Eliade, ''Images and Symbols'', p. 170</ref> 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".<ref name="Eliade p.170"/>

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"), Italian researcher [[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.<ref name="Jesi, p.66-67">Jesi, pp. 66–67</ref> In 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.<ref name="Jesi, p.66-67"/> Ultimately, according to Jesi, Eliade sees Christianity as the only religion that can save man from the "Terror of history".<ref>Jesi, pp. 66–70</ref>

In Eliade's view, traditional man sees time as an endless repetition of mythical archetypes. In contrast, modern man has abandoned mythical archetypes and entered linear, historical time—in this context, 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".<ref>Eliade, ''The Myth of the Eternal Return'', p. 162</ref>

===="Modern gnosticism", Romanticism and Eliade's nostalgia====
In analyzing the similarities between the "mythologists" Eliade, [[Joseph Campbell]] and Carl Jung, Robert Ellwood concluded that the three modern mythologists, all of whom believed that myths reveal "timeless truth",<ref>Ellwood, p. 6</ref> fulfilled the role "[[Gnosticism|gnostics]]" had in [[Ancient history|antiquity]]. The diverse religious movements covered by the term "gnosticism" share the basic doctrines that the surrounding world is fundamentally evil or inhospitable, that we are trapped in the world through no fault of our own, and that we can be saved from the world only through secret knowledge (''[[gnosis]]'').<ref>Ellwood, p. 9</ref> Ellwood claimed that the three mythologists were "modern gnostics through and through",<ref>Ellwood, p. 15</ref> remarking,
<blockquote>Whether in [[Augustus|Augustan Rome]] or modern Europe, democracy all too easily gave way to [[totalitarianism]], technology was as readily used for battle as for comfort, and immense wealth lay alongside abysmal poverty. [...] Gnostics past and present sought answers not in the course of outward human events, but in knowledge of the world's beginning, of what lies above and beyond the world, and of the secret places of the human soul. To all this the mythologists spoke, and they acquired large and loyal followings.<ref>Ellwood, p. 2</ref></blockquote>

According to Ellwood, the mythologists believed in gnosticism's basic doctrines (even if in a secularized form). Ellwood also believes that [[Romanticism]], which stimulated the modern study of mythology,<ref name="Ellwood, p.19">Ellwood, p. 19</ref> strongly influenced the mythologists. Because Romantics stress that emotion and imagination have the same dignity as reason, Ellwood argues, they tend to think political truth "is known less by rational considerations than by its capacity to fire the passions" and, therefore, that political truth is "very apt to be found [...] in the distant past".<ref name="Ellwood, p.19"/>

As modern gnostics, Ellwood argues, the three mythologists felt alienated from the surrounding modern world. As scholars, they knew of primordial societies that had operated differently from modern ones. And as people influenced by Romanticism, they saw myths as a saving ''gnosis'' that offered "avenues of eternal return to simpler primordial ages when the values that rule the world were forged".<ref>Ellwood, p. 1</ref> In addition, Ellwood identifies Eliade's personal sense of nostalgia as a source for his interest in, or even his theories about, traditional societies.<ref>Ellwood, pp. 99, 117</ref> He cites Eliade himself claiming to desire an "eternal return" like that by which traditional man returns to the mythical paradise: "My essential preoccupation is precisely the means of escaping History, of saving myself through symbol, myth, rite, archetypes".<ref>Eliade, quoted by [[Virgil Ierunca]], ''The Literary Work of Mircea Eliade'', in Ellwood, p. 117</ref>

In Ellwood's view, Eliade's nostalgia was only enhanced by his exile from Romania: "In later years Eliade felt about his own Romanian past as did primal folk about mythic time. He was drawn back to it, yet he knew he could not live there, and that all was not well with it."<ref name="Ellwood, p.101">Ellwood, p. 101</ref> He suggests that this nostalgia, along with Eliade's sense that "exile is among the profoundest metaphors for all human life",<ref>Ellwood, p. 97</ref> influenced Eliade's theories. Ellwood sees evidence of this in Eliade's concept of the "Terror of history" from which modern man is no longer shielded.<ref>Ellwood, p. 102</ref> In this concept, Ellwood sees an "element of nostalgia" for earlier times "when the sacred was strong and the terror of history had barely raised its head".<ref>Ellwood, p. 103</ref>