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Product Description
A noted historian of religion traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times, in terms of space, time, nature and the cosmos, and life itself. Index. Translated by Willard Trask.
About the Author
Mircea Eliade (March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proven influential. One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them. In academia, the Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.
His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ("La Nuit Bengali" or "Bengal Nights"), Noaptea de Sânziene ("The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel si apele diavolului ("Isabel and the Devil's Waters") and the Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent, the novellas Domnisoara Christina ("Miss Christina") and Tinerete fara tinerete ("Youth Without Youth"), and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ("The Secret of Dr. Honigberger") and La Tiganci ("With the Gypsy Girls").
Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society Criterion. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization. His political involvement at the time, as well as his other far right connections, were the frequent topic of criticism after World War II.
Remarkable for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Sacred and Profane,
By Tami Brady "Whole Health" (Calgary, Canada) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Paperback)
Years ago, I was assigned this book in one of my university classes. I number it in my most memorable and personally influential works that I have ever read. At the time, I had just begun to study archaeology and had very little understanding of the concept of ethnocentricism. My personal way of thinking was very black and white. The only real experience that I had with the dichotomies of the sacred versus the profane at that point was my own experiences.The Sacred and the Profane gave me an entirely different perspective. I began seeing how others saw religion, spirituality, ritual, and symbolism in slightly different ways. How certain experiences could be interpreted in a variety of ways to become personal and cultural beliefs. I also noticed how these beliefs permeated into everyday life. So began my interests in spirituality, symbolic dichotomies, and the varied beliefs of others.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ontological Nature of Religion,
By zonaras (Jimbo's House of Pie) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Paperback)
_The Sacred and the Profane_ by Mircea Eliade is a work that examines (or attempts to examine) the ontological meaning of religion and religious experience. It is an excellent, if highly abstract work that tries to explain what it means to actually be. Religious experience is that of knowledge of the sacred and the meanings attached to it. The sacred distinguishes itself from the profane by what Eliade terms a "hierophany" or manifestation of the sacred. The sacred indicates a break in profane existence, both in space and time. Space becomes sacred when it has a meaning above and beyond itself, and time becomes sacred when it hearkens back to man's primordial beginnings, rooted in myth. It symbolizes death and rebirth. _The Sacred and the Profane_ covers foundation ceremonies, ritual sacrifices, the "axis mundi", New Year's celebrations, the polarity between sun and moon, masculine and feminine, rites of initiation (such as baptism and its parallels in other religions), and modern man's fall into an almost completely profane world. Eliade, who was affiliated with a pro-fascist revolutionary group (whose slogan was "long live death!") in his native Romania, is hoping toward some type of spiritual revival. Religious man, contrary to modernist doctrines, actually looks for the deeper value in mere existential being, rooted in something above and beyond himself, the true nature of Reality. In the conclusion of _The Sacred and the Profane_ Eliade ponders why religion has fallen away in the West today. Religious man looked toward a hypothetical Golden Age, Garden of Eden, Elysian Fields, Paradise, etc, as something which had existed in the mythical past and to which fallen humanity would someday return. This consciousness has been lost from modern man, and Eliade considers this question to be beyond the realm of pure history, and perhaps a thing to be investigated by "even theologians."
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is IT!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Paperback)
Eliade was among the first to realize that our world is in danger. Because our science advances the world but in the same time demolishes it.And the only way to come back, the only way to get back into sacred time is to understand that it is needed a rigorous study of world religions. Of course that this doesn't mean that we have to be fanatics, but rather to read carefully and to understand the message. And by this we will come back into sacred time. I think this is the point of Mircea Eliade's book....
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