Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

====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>