Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

==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 overgeneralizations: 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.<ref>Douglas Allen, "Eliade and History", in ''Journal of Religion'', 52:2 (1988), p. 545</ref>

The classicist [[Geoffrey Kirk|G. S. Kirk]] criticizes Eliade's insistence that [[Australian Aborigines]] and ancient [[Mesopotamia]]ns 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.<ref name="Kirk, Myth..., footnote, p.255">Kirk, ''Myth...'', footnote, p. 255</ref> According to Kirk, "such extravagances, together with a marked repetitiousness, have made Eliade unpopular with many anthropologists and sociologists".<ref name="Kirk, Myth..., footnote, p.255"/> In Kirk's view, Eliade derived his theory of [[Eternal return (Eliade)|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 mythology|Native American]] or [[Greek mythology]].<ref>Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', pp. 64–66</ref> Kirk concludes, "Eliade's idea is a valuable perception about certain myths, not a guide to the proper understanding of all of them".<ref>Kirk, ''The Nature of Greek Myths'', p. 66</ref>

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.<ref name="Doniger Forward p.xiii"/> However, although Doniger agrees that Eliade made overgeneralizations, 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".<ref>Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p. xii</ref> 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".<ref name="Doniger Forward p.xiii"/>

===Lack of empirical support===
Several researchers have criticized Eliade's work as having no [[Empirical method|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",<ref name="ricketts">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), pp. 400–402</ref> though the same critics admit that "the history of religions should not aim at being an empirical science anyway".<ref name="ricketts"/> 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''".<ref>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, pp. 466–469 (Alles' italics)</ref> Also, there has been mention of his tendency to ignore the social aspects of religion.<ref name="oscaderea"/> 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.<ref>Alice Kehoe, ''Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking'', Waveland Press, London, 2000, ''passim''. {{ISBN|1-57766-162-1}}</ref>

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":<ref name="bolle">Kees W. Bolle, ''The Freedom of Man in Myth'', [[Vanderbilt University Press]], Nashville, 1968, p. 14. {{ISBN|0-8265-1248-8}}</ref> Bolle sets Eliade apart for what he sees as Eliade's particularly close "attention to the various particular motifs" of different myths.<ref name="bolle"/> French researcher Daniel Dubuisson places doubt on Eliade's scholarship and its scientific character, citing the Romanian academic's alleged refusal to accept the treatment of religions in their historical and cultural context, and proposing that Eliade's notion of ''[[hierophany]]'' refers to the actual existence of a supernatural level.<ref name="mlimpost"/>

[[Ronald Inden]], a historian of India and University of Chicago professor, criticized Mircea Eliade, alongside other intellectual figures ([[Carl Jung]] and [[Joseph Campbell]] among them), for encouraging a "romantic view" of [[Hinduism]].<ref name="indenmorny">Inden, in Morny Joy, "Irigaray's Eastern Expedition", Chapter 4 of Morny Joy, [[Kathleen O'Grady]], Judith L. Poxon, ''Religion in French Feminist Thought: Critical Perspectives'', [[Routledge]], London, 2003, p. 63. {{ISBN|0-415-21536-6}}</ref> He argued that their approach to the subject relied mainly on an [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] approach, and made Hinduism seem like "a private realm of the imagination and the religious which modern, Western man lacks but needs."<ref name="indenmorny"/>

===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 [[Julius Evola]] he continued to draw inspiration from, have thematic links to fascism.<ref name="pccheie"/><ref name="mlimpost"/><ref>Griffin, ''passim''</ref> Writer and academic {{ill|Marcel Tolcea|ro}} has argued that, through Evola's particular interpretation of Guénon's works, Eliade kept a traceable connection with far right ideologies in his academic contributions.<ref name="pccheie"/> Daniel Dubuisson singled out Eliade's concept of ''homo religiosus'' as a reflection of fascist [[elitism]], and argued that the Romanian scholar's views of Judaism and the [[Old Testament]], which depicted Hebrews as the enemies of an ancient cosmic religion, were ultimately the preservation of an [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] discourse.<ref name="mlimpost"/>

A piece authored in 1930 saw Eliade defining Julius Evola as a great thinker and offering praise to the controversial intellectuals [[Oswald Spengler]], [[Arthur de Gobineau]], [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]] and the [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideologue [[Alfred Rosenberg]].<ref name="mlimpost"/> 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.<ref>Eliade, ''Fragments d'un Journal 11, 1970–1978'', [[Éditions Gallimard]], Paris, 1981, p. 194</ref> 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.<ref>Griffin, p. 173; Douglas R. Holmes, ''Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism'', [[Princeton University Press]], Princeton, 2000, p. 78</ref>

Notably, Eliade was also preoccupied with the cult of [[Thracian religion|Thracian]] deity [[Zalmoxis]] and its supposed [[monotheism]].<ref name="boia">[[Lucian Boia]], ''Istorie şi mit în conştiinţa românească'', [[Humanitas publishing house|Humanitas]], Bucharest, 1997 (tr. ''History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness'', [[Central European University Press]], Budapest, 2001), p. 152</ref><ref>Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in ''[[Slavic Review]]'', Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), pp. 807–809</ref> This, like his conclusion that [[Romanization (cultural)|Romanization]] had been superficial inside [[Roman Dacia]], was a view celebrated by contemporary partisans of [[Protochronism|protochronist]] nationalism.<ref name="oscaderea"/><ref name="boia"/> According to historian [[Sorin Antohi]], Eliade may have actually encouraged protochronists such as [[Edgar Papu]] to carry out research which resulted in the claim that medieval Romanians had anticipated the [[Renaissance]].<ref>Antohi, preface to Liiceanu, p. xx</ref>

In his study of Eliade, Jung, and Campbell, Ellwood also discusses the connection between academic theories and controversial political involvements, noting that all three mythologists have been accused of [[reactionary]] political positions. Ellwood notes the obvious parallel between the conservatism of myth, which speaks of a primordial golden age, and the conservatism of far right politics.<ref>Ellwood, pp. xiii–xiv</ref> However, Ellwood argues that the explanation is more complex than that. Wherever their political sympathies may have sometimes been, he claims, the three mythologists were often "apolitical if not antipolitical, scorning any this-worldly salvation".<ref>Ellwood, p. 13</ref> Moreover, the connection between mythology and politics differs for each of the mythologists in question: in Eliade's case, Ellwood believes, a strong sense of nostalgia ("for childhood, for historical times past, for cosmic religion, for paradise"),<ref name="Ellwood, p.99"/> influenced not only the scholar's academic interests, but also his political views.

Because Eliade stayed out of politics during his later life, Ellwood tries to extract an implicit political philosophy from Eliade's scholarly works. Ellwood argues that the later Eliade's nostalgia for ancient traditions did not make him a political reactionary, even a quiet one. He concludes that the later Eliade was, in fact, a "radical [[Modernism|modernist]]".<ref name="Ellwood, p.119">Ellwood, p. 119</ref> According to Ellwood,
<blockquote>Those who see Eliade's fascination with the primordial as merely reactionary in the ordinary political or religious sense of the word do not understand the mature Eliade in a sufficiently radical way. [...] Tradition was not for him exactly [[Edmund Burke|Burkean]] 'prescription' or sacred trust to be kept alive generation after generation, for Eliade was fully aware that tradition, like men and nations, lives only by changing and even occultation. The tack is not to try fruitlessly to keep it unchanging, but to discover where it is hiding.<ref name="Ellwood, p.119"/></blockquote>

According to Eliade, religious elements survive in secular culture, but in new, "camouflaged" forms.<ref>Ellwood, p. 118</ref> Thus, Ellwood believes that the later Eliade probably thought modern man should preserve elements of the past, but should not try to restore their original form through reactionary politics.<ref>Ellwood, pp. 119–120</ref> He suspects that Eliade would have favored "a minimal rather than a maximalist state" that would allow personal spiritual transformation without enforcing it.<ref name="Ellwood, p.120">Ellwood, p. 120</ref>

Many scholars have accused Eliade of "[[essentialism]]", a type of overgeneralization in which one incorrectly attributes a common "essence" to a whole group—in this case, all "religious" or "traditional" societies. Furthermore, some see a connection between Eliade's essentialism with regard to religion and fascist essentialism with regard to races and nations.<ref name="Ellwood, p.111">Ellwood, p. 111</ref> To Ellwood, this connection "seems rather tortured, in the end amounting to little more than an ''ad hominem'' argument which attempts to tar Eliade's entire [scholarly] work with the ill-repute all decent people feel for [[Sturmabteilung|storm troopers]] and the Iron Guard".<ref name="Ellwood, p.111"/> However, Ellwood admits that common tendencies in "mythological thinking" may have caused Eliade, as well as Jung and Campbell, to view certain groups in an "essentialist" way, and that this may explain their purported antisemitism: "A tendency to think in generic terms of peoples, races, religions, or parties, which as we shall see is undoubtedly the profoundest flaw in mythological thinking, including that of such modern mythologists as our three, can connect with nascent anti-Semitism, or the connection can be the other way."<ref>Ellwood, p. x</ref>