Book Description

Mircea Eliade--one of the most renowned expositors of the psychology of religion, mythology, and magic--shows that myth and symbol constitute a mode of thought that not only came before that of discursive and logical reasoning, but is still an essential function of human consciousness. He describes and analyzes some of the most powerful and ubiquitous symbols that have ruled the mythological thinking of East and West in many times and at many levels of cultural development.

Customer Reviews (1)

Towards a new humanism
This insightful book features a central element of Eliade's work as a whole: a humanistic impulse which envisions the study of symbols as the best possible way to overcome close-mindedness and provincialism, and which holds that a liberation from the traps of historicism is necessary in order to reach the archetypes that somehow inform the multiple 'symbolic incarnations' throughout the ages and peoples. Eliade here considers symbols of centre, time, binding (relying a lot on Dumezil on that topic), waters and shells. The relationship between symbol and history is constantly examined in the book: Eliade suggests that each new meaning ascribed by history to a symbol does not alter the latter's fundamental structure, since the symbol can properly be considered 'transhistorical'. This is as good a work as any to start reading Eliade; many quintessential Eliadian themes are treated here. ... Read more

Book Description
So speaks a character in Two Strange Tales, a pair of novellas in which Westerners are caught up in the uncanny realm of Eastern religion and magic. In "Nights at Serampore, " three European scholars, traveling deep in the forests of Bengal, are inexplicably cast into another time and space where they witness the violent murder of a young Hindu wife. In "The Secret of Dr. Honigberger, " a respectable Rumanian physician vanishes without a trace after experimenting with yogic techniques in his quest for the legendary invisible world called Shambhala. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

But no event in our world is real, my friend.
I consider this book to be a rare little serendipitous gem. I had no idea that such an important scholar of comparative religion as Eliade wrote fiction. Nor was his writing of literature fantastique simply a hobby, a diversion from his more serious pursuits. In the introduction that he wrote himself for this edition he states that some things are best expressed by incorporating them into a narrative. There are some nonordinary states whose subtle character can only be understood by experiencing them, or at least vicariously experiencing them by identification with the characters in a work of fiction.

Both stories in this book deal with the transcendence of the ordinary perception of space and time. In the first, three Europeans in colonial India find themselves involuntarily drawn through time by the operations of another. The second is the account of a scholar who learned to transcend time and space through the study of yoga- following the path of another learned doctor who went before him. Both tales weave a most believable atmosphere, but this is understandable given that many of the characters and concepts are rooted in historical fact. At no time do you feel that this book was written simply to be sensational for its own sake, in order to make a dollar.

You come away from a book like this either questioning whether anything in the ordinary world is real, or perhaps confirmed in your own personal experiences about the nature of "reality."

"I have always divided people into two categories: those who understand death as an end to life and the body, and those who conceive it as the beginning of a new, spiritual existence. And I never form an opinion of any man I meet until I have learned his honest belief about death. Otherwise I might be deceived by high intelligence and dazzling charm."

Two Great Tales
I have read several of Eliade's books on religion, and I was surprised that he wrote fiction.Both stories are great, and they play upon themes covered in his scholarly works, e.g., sacred time and space.His academic works can be difficult to fully understand, the fiction helps to clarify and give new dimensions to his scholarly themes.

If you are not familiar with his other works--that is not a problem (and perhaps a positive) because you will not be deflected from the quality of the fiction itself (which is superb). If you like a pre WWII fantastic/fantasy style, you willfind Two Tales to be a fast and enjoyable read.

For seekers of real mystery, truth,...and thrill.
This book contains two extraordinarily vivid and dramatic stories. The first one, "Night at Serampore", describes an episode (probably containing some amount of autobiographical experience) involving some strange kind of time travel or "fall into the past" whereby one night while staying as a guest in an old rural indian mansion the main protagonist becomes in most misterious circumstances an involuntarywitness to long past events.This extraordinary experience could seemingly be due,as the story tends to suggest, to the influence of advanced tantric meditators who presumably had been involved that same night in some kind of secret powerful yogic-tantric rituals in a nearby area...
The second story, "The Secret of Dr. Honigsberger" is based on a real character, an indologist scholar who dissappeared in somewhat mysterious circumstances quite a long time ago. Eliade takes this fact as a starting point for a most thrilling story narrating the experience of a student that is called by Dr. Honigsberger's widow in order to review and order the personal notes and papers left by her late husband in the hope of finding some clues regarding his dissapearance. The facts given by the story indicate that the dissapearance had taken place quite some time ago in the scholar'sown house and in unexplainable circumstances. ...The rest is a masterful narration of amost exciting investigation dealing with occult yogic practices in a haunting environment... As to the real Dr. Honigsberger, there are some hints about this most curious event in a book containing a long interview to Eliade whose exact title in the english version I can't recall but that probably goes as "The Test of the Labyrinth",...or something close to this.
It is important to note thatboth stories contain serious and authoritative information and details concerning yogic practices. After all, we must keep in mind that Mircea Eliade was a top world authority in the History of Religions and a most knowledgeable expert in Indian Religion. Must be read by those who search for the mysterious and extraordinary,...and for good and well documented literature as well.

A Powerful, Mystical Experience
Probably one of the best books I've read. The two stories are in the pre-war tradition of fantastical literature, along the lines of THE STRANGE LIFE OF IVAN OSOKIN, by P. D. Ouspensky, and THE MASTER OF THE DAY OFJUDGMENT, by Leo Perutz. To be honest, I read the book about 10 years ago,so I can only write in general terms. The first tale, "Nights atSerampore," set in and around the town of Serampore, India, in the1930s, describes the unsettling and life-changing experiences of a Europeanstudent while visiting a friend in an isolated forest near the town. Afterencountering his University professor, a reputed magician, mysteriouslywandering along the road at night, he sees and hears things that ordinarilywould be considered impossible. These experiences teach him a lesson inHindu mysticism and magic (as well as the possible true nature ofexistence) that leave an indelible stamp on his memory.

The other tale,whose title now escapes me, addresses a similar subject -- the notion thatthings are not what they seem, that there is another reality beyond thepale of what we usually consider "normal." It describes theexperience of a young man, a student of the occult, if I remembercorrectly, who gains access to a vast library of occult books, formerlyowned by a doctor who had spent time traveling and studying in China beforehe mysteriously disappeared. In the course of his research the young manstumbles across the doctor's journal; after reading a chilling account ofthe doctor's experiments with Oriental occultism and of his seeminglyimpossible fate, the young man learns more about the power of magic than hewished to know.

In this age of excessive materialism and forcedpragmatism, these TWO STRANGE TALES are heartily recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

In this landmark book the renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, exploring how its guiding principle, that of freedom, involves remaining in the world without letting oneself be exhausted by such "conditionings" as time and history. Drawing on years of study and experience in India, Eliade provides a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest foreshadowings in the Vedas through the twentieth century. The subjects discussed include Patañjali, author of the Yoga-sutras; yogic techniques, such as concentration "on a Single Point," postures, and respiratory discipline; and Yoga in relation to Brahmanism, Buddhism, Tantrism, Oriental alchemy, mystical erotism, and shamanism.

Customer Reviews (6)

A Masterpiece
Eliade is the greatest of the modern interpreters of myth and religious practice, and Shamanism, along with his Yoga: Immorality and Freedom, are his two most brilliant works. If you love the study of comparative religion any myth, you'll love this book. Bear in mind that these books are about what people believe and how they think about those beliefs. Eliade is a scholar, not a pseudo-mystic, so expect brilliant analysis and insights, not a how-to book on New Age levitation, hepatoscopy, and Oomantia (divination using egg whites!).

Recommended by a former student of the author's
This book was my first introduction to yoga in the late 1960's, when the author taught at the University of Chicago and I did graduate work in South Asian Studies. Many decades later, after yoga teacher's training, studies in Carl Jung's archetypal psychology, alchemy and dreamwork I still find it a valuable reference book.It's a good introduction for anyone interested in following the development of yoga theory and practice in India: the major traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and even aboriginal cultures. Eliade's discussion of the art and practice of Tantric ritual is still among the best I've seen; it clarifies an otherwise confusing topic for the Western reader. A classic not only for yoga teachers' libraries and academics, but recommended for anyone with an interest in what yoga's really about, and where it orginated.

All serious yoga scholars have this book or want it
I have the Bollingen paperback third printing of the Second Edition of 1969.I have little doubt that they used the plates from that hardcover edition, so the text is identical.The edition of 1970 currently available is the same as the one I have except for a new cover.The original was in French, published in Paris in 1954.This edition is professionally translated by William R. Trask.

Eliade was a nearly legendary scholar of indefatigable energy, and so it is not surprising that this is the definitive single volume academic work on yoga in English (that I am aware of).George Feuerstein's coffee table sized The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice (1998) is a different sort of book, covering yoga from a more practical point of view, and is accessible to a general public.Eliade's book is aimed directly and just about exclusively at academicians.Furthermore, while Feuerstein is a practitioner as well as a scholar, Eliade makes no pretense of first hand experience.As he relates in the Forward, he is interested in the discovery and interpretation of yoga by the West.He wants to explain that in detail.His is a "comparatively full exposition of the theory and practices of yoga...[a] history of its forms, and...its place in Indian spirituality..." (p. xx)The qualifying "comparatively" is a bit of modesty on the part of Eliade.This book really is a "full exposition" (insofar as that is possible) including the ideas, symbolism and methods of yoga "as they are expressed in tantrism, in alchemy, in folklore, in the aboriginal devotion of India." (p. xxii)

The text, which includes lengthy chapters such as, "Yoga and Brahmanism," "Yoga Techniques in Buddhism," "Yoga and Tantrism," "Yoga and Alchemy," etc. runs for 362 dense pages.Sixty-six pages of notes follow, and then a most extensive and valuable bibliography.The Index itself is 47 pages long and concludes with a by-line(!), "Index by Bart Winer," which is only right considering the text was written and set before the age of computers.

This is not a book for practitioners of yoga but a book for students and scholars of the literature of yoga.It is a challenge to read and appreciate and only really accessible to those with some experience with the literature.There is probably no serious yoga book written in the past quarter century that fails to cite it.

Yoga philosopy, the details
Eliade researched for this book, while staying with Surendranath Dasgupta in India, who was the formost scholar of indian philosophy and thelogy at his time. Eliade meticulously analyzed the indian scriptures andcommentaries on sankhya and yoga and presents yoga as a huge, complex andprecise system of practice and philosphy with the goal of kaivalyam(libration). This book is a lighthouse in the present time of publishing asmuch as the printing press can print.

Necessary foundation for further study in Yoga
This book is required reading for anyone determined to arrive at a realistic understanding of yoga and Hinduism.It illuminates the central doctrines and history of the thought, as well as providing theunderstanding for a multitude of sanscrit words which anyone committed tofurther study will find invaluable.For most, this book may be thepinnacle of their yogic study; for others, a great stepping stone. ... Read more

Book Description

This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.

Customer Reviews (2)

The Myth of the Eternal Return
This was my second book by Mircea Eliade, but certainly not the last. It is very similar in content to his more basic introduction book "The Sacred and the Profane", detailing mostly the so-called Archaic religions views on time and space and related issues of religion. Naturally, being a bit longer, it also is more focused and in many ways more interesting for me personally, since a lot of it deals with the Indo-European concept of the ages and the Cosmos. Eliade was a professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, among other things, but he was also very well travelled, having studied under the guidance of an Indian yogi back in Mother India. He was born in Rumania, a contemporary of the European idealist freedom fighter Corneliu Codreanu in the 30's, and in fact a member of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, a radical "Right-wing" religious organization opposed to the project of creating a new Israel on Rumanian soil.

Although Eliade throughout his life claimed to be very "apolitical", his views on religion have a natural conservative and reactionary consequence, so hence this is for sure one of "our own boys". The book itself is split into four chapters, the first one being "Archetypes and Repetition". This is highly interesting, and details the many forms of rituals throughout the world (mostly archaic) that have been performed to re-create the cosmogony and the sacred times when the Gods or God-heroes performed the original act that the ritual today resembles. Eliade claims that for sacred rituals there is always a divine model that is more real than the perceived reality around us. He is quite clearly influenced by Platonic philosophy, with his emphasis that it is the divine celestial model that is real, the "idea", if you will, and that reality merely is a cheaper mirror copy of the celestial reality. Here we can mention for example the well-known city in the sky, or the real celestial earth.

The second chapter is "The Regeneration of Time", a chapter dealing with the idea that the world and the cosmos need regeneration, which the human races have a responsibility of helping with. The Gods spent themselves when they created the world, so hence we need to give them a little push. Often, this fell on the first time of the New Year, so hence, the Ragnarok of the cosmos fell on the last day of the year, and then the cosmos was regenerated on the first.

The third chapter is "Misfortune and History", where he does get a little political as well, dryly remarking that those that have claimed all in history is good, probably wouldn't have felt the same way had they been born in the Baltic or in the Balkans, where they for the simple reason of being neighbours with the Red Beast got invaded and killed off in millions. He then goes a little quasi-Hegelian on us, when he details how many races and cultures have though of history as theophany, that is, history as the appearance of God. He also details the various Yugas, or ages if you will, and how we are now decidedly in the Kali Yuga, the last age, known as Ragnarok to my own Germanic ancestors. If you don't believe this, turn on your television, and see how degraded the West and the world has become as of late, always deteriorating further.

The final chapter is "The Terror of History", detailing how these people acted with their knowledge that everything always returns, that unless you find a way out of the circle, your soul will always return to existence, along with the eternal cosmos. Of course, the fact that Creation will occur again and again is not something that many so-called "modern Christians" will find acceptable, but alas, this is what our ancestors believed, as well as the fact that for large parts of European Christianity, the Christological interpretation of history was merged with the Aryan one, to create a kind of "Cosmic Christianity", which was the religion that Eliade himself felt a part of.

This is of course a very shallow review of such a wide and deep book filled with examples and information to the brim, but I've read it twice in a month now, so it is certainly a wonderful book.

Highly recommended!

(I read the first English 1955-edition)

Human Destiny as the Product of Consciousness
Somewhere on the cover, or in the preface, or even in the introductions to other of his many profound works in the field of comparative religious studies, one will find Eliade's famous counsel: "I consider it the most significant of my books; and when asked in what order they should be read, I always recommend beginning with The Myth of the Eternal Return."One of the enduring monuments of twentieth century academic writing, The Myth of the Eternal Return expounds Eliade's seminal ruminations on the advent of the nuclear, or post-modern era - the naissance of our capacity for apocalyptic self-annihilation - an attempt to demonstrate in analyzable terms the relation between the foundations of the contemporary psyche to the seemingly adventitious madness which actively anticipates (and even militates in favor of) an end-time, an Armageddon, a Judgment Day, if you will.Eliade thus asks the arch-question: "What can protect us from the terror of history?"
The discussion is framed within a comparison between what Eliade deems as the distinctive difference between the ancient and modern, the archaic (or primitive) and contemporary world-view.The modern envisions reality as a series of events which fulminate in a linear, progressive history - a history which had a beginning and will have an end.The ancient experiences reality as an endless, cyclic repetition of primordial acts. "... the life of archaic man (a life reduced to the repetition of archetypal acts, that is, to categories and not to events, to the unceasing rehearsal of the same primordial myths) although it takes place in time, does not bear the burden of time, does not record time's irreversibility; in other words, completely ignores what is especially characteristic and decisive in a consciousness of time.Like the mystic, like the religious man in general, the primitive lives in a continual present.(And it is in this sense that the religious man may be said to be a `primitive'; he repeats the gestures of another and, through this repetition, lives always in an atemporal present.)"
Eliade points to the centrality of the lunar cycle in the mythological fabric woven from this perspective, which, to a degree, envelops our own world-view, however linear and eschatologically determinate."The phases of the moon - appearance, increase, wane, disappearance, followed by reappearance after three nights of darkness - have played an immense part in the elaboration of cyclical concepts.We find analogous concepts especially in the archaic apocalypses and anthropogonies; deluge or flood puts an end to an exhausted and sinful humanity, and a new regenerated humanity is born, usually from a mythical `ancestor' who escaped the catastrophe, or from a lunar animal."Regeneration of humanity is thus always implied in its destruction.In the natural imaging, like the seasons, we assure ourselves, fall and dissolution are ever succeeded by renewal. "... just as the disappearance of the moon is never final, since it is necessarily followed by a new moon, the disappearance of man is not final either; in particular, even the disappearance of an entire humanity ... is never total ..."As the modern (historical) cultures translate this concept, "this optimism can be reduced to a consciousness of the normality of the cyclical catastrophe, to the certainty that it has a meaning and, above all, that it is never final... In the `lunar perspective', the death of the individual and the periodic death of humanity are necessary, even as the three days of darkness preceding the `rebirth' of the moon are necessary. The death of the individual and the death of humanity are alike necessary for their regeneration ... what predominates in all these cosmico-mythological lunar conceptions is the cyclical occurrence of what has been before, in a word, eternal return."
Due to the fact that the modern, predominantly Western model, of consciousness, primarily informed by Hebraic/Christian-Greek (teleological) influences, perceives time as a matrix for linear progress toward eschatological fulfillment, an end (and Eliade does not hesitate to analyze with his usual acumen - and here one must highlight the amazing passage where he claims that the concept of `ekpyrosis', the destruction of the world by fire, originates in early Iranian mythology - how Islam developed within this eschatological framework), we are forced to confront what he terms "the terror of history", the assertion (often stated by zealots of various stripes as fact) that human history, itself, must end.Recognition of this shift in human consciousness, from the archaic celebration of the repetition of nativity to the modern obsession with the limitation of mortality yields enormous explanatory power.In the face of the nuclear option, we must seriously consider how far such concepts as "resurrection", "rebirth" have tangible reality, not merely a traditionally assigned or contemplatively evoked meaning, but value as real states of affairs.
"Since the `invention' of faith, in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word (= for God all is possible), the man who has left the horizon of archetypes and repetition can no longer defend himself against that terror except through the idea of God . . .Any other situation of modern man leads, in the end, to despair.It is a despair provoked not by his own human existentiality, but by his presence in a historical universe in which almost the whole of mankind lives prey to a continual terror (even if not always conscious of it) . . .
In this respect, Christianity incontestably proves to be the religion of `fallen man': and to the extent to which modern man is irremediably identified with history and progress, and to which history and progress are a fall, both implying the final abandonment of the paradise of archetypes and repetition."These are the words with which the book concludes.If all that we are is the product of all that has been thought, they deserve the closest sort of reading by every thinking being.For the final abandonment, in the fine sense and print, means no less than the final abandonment of planet earth and the evolutionary project of humanity in full.

... Read more

Book Description
This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

The Myth of the Eternal Return
This was my second book by Mircea Eliade, and it is very similar in content to his more basic introduction book "The Sacred and the Profane", detailing mostly the so-called Archaic religions views on time and space and related issues of religion. Naturally, being a bit longer, it also is more focused and in many ways more interesting for me personally, since a lot of it deals with the Indo-European concept of the ages and the Cosmos. Eliade was a professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, among other things, but he was also very well travelled, having studied under the guidance of an Indian yogi back in Mother India. He was born in Rumania, a contemporary of the European idealist freedom fighter Corneliu Codreanu in the 30's, and in fact a member of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, a radical "Right-wing" religious organization opposed to the project of creating a new Israel on Rumanian soil.

Although Eliade throughout his life claimed to be very "apolitical", his views on religion have a natural conservative and reactionary consequence, so hence this is for sure one of "our own boys". The book itself is split into four chapters, the first one being "Archetypes and Repetition". This is highly interesting, and details the many forms of rituals throughout the world (mostly archaic) that have been performed to re-create the cosmogony and the sacred times when the Gods or God-heroes performed the original act that the ritual today resembles. Eliade claims that for sacred rituals there is always a divine model that is more real than the perceived reality around us. He is quite clearly influenced by Platonic philosophy, with his emphasis that it is the divine celestial model that is real, the "idea", if you will, and that reality merely is a cheaper mirror copy of the celestial reality.

The second chapter is "The Regeneration of Time", a chapter dealing with the idea that the world and the cosmos need regeneration, which the human races have a responsibility of helping with. Often, this fell on the first time of the New Year, so hence, the Ragnarok of the cosmos fell on the last day of the year, and then the cosmos was regenerated on the first.

The third chapter is "Misfortune and History", where he does get a little political as well, dryly remarking that those that have claimed all in history is good, probably wouldn't have felt the same way had they been born in the Baltic or in the Balkans, where they for the simple reason of being neighbours with the Red Beast got invaded and killed off in millions. He then goes a little quasi-Hegelian on us, when he details how many races and cultures have though of history as theophany, that is, history as the appearance of God. He also details the various Yugas, or ages if you will, and how we are now decidedly in the Kali Yuga, the last age, known as Ragnarok to my own Germanic ancestors. If you don't believe this, turn on your television, and see how degraded the West and the world has become as of late, always deteriorating further.

The final chapter is "The Terror of History", detailing how these people acted with their knowledge that everything always returns, that unless you find a way out of the circle, your soul will always return to existence, along with the eternal cosmos. The fact that Creation will occur again and again is not something that many so-called "modern Christians" will find acceptable, but alas, this is what our ancestors believed, as well as the fact that for large parts of European Christianity, the Christological interpretation of history was merged with the Aryan one, to create a kind of "Cosmic Christianity", which was the religion that Eliade himself felt a part of.

This is of course a very shallow review of such a wide and deep book filled with examples and information to the brim, but I've read it twice in a month now, so it is certainly a wonderful book.

(I read the first English 1955-edition)

Human Destiny as the Product of Consciousness
Somewhere on the cover, or in the preface, or even in the introductions to other of his many profound works in the field of comparative religious studies, one will find Eliade's famous counsel: "I consider it the most significant of my books; and when asked in what order they should be read, I always recommend beginning with The Myth of the Eternal Return."One of the enduring monuments of twentieth century academic writing, The Myth of the Eternal Return expounds Eliade's seminal ruminations on the advent of the nuclear, or post-modern era - the naissance of our capacity for apocalyptic self-annihilation - an attempt to demonstrate in analyzable terms the relation between the foundations of the contemporary psyche to the seemingly adventitious madness which actively anticipates (and even militates in favor of) an end-time, an Armageddon, a Judgment Day, if you will.Eliade thus asks the arch-question: "What can protect us from the terror of history?"
The discussion is framed within a comparison between what Eliade deems as the distinctive difference between the ancient and modern, the archaic (or primitive) and contemporary world-view.The modern envisions reality as a series of events which fulminate in a linear, progressive history - a history which had a beginning and will have an end.The ancient experiences reality as an endless, cyclic repetition of primordial acts. "... the life of archaic man (a life reduced to the repetition of archetypal acts, that is, to categories and not to events, to the unceasing rehearsal of the same primordial myths) although it takes place in time, does not bear the burden of time, does not record time's irreversibility; in other words, completely ignores what is especially characteristic and decisive in a consciousness of time.Like the mystic, like the religious man in general, the primitive lives in a continual present.(And it is in this sense that the religious man may be said to be a `primitive'; he repeats the gestures of another and, through this repetition, lives always in an atemporal present.)"
Eliade points to the centrality of the lunar cycle in the mythological fabric woven from this perspective, which, to a degree, envelops our own world-view, however linear and eschatologically determinate."The phases of the moon - appearance, increase, wane, disappearance, followed by reappearance after three nights of darkness - have played an immense part in the elaboration of cyclical concepts.We find analogous concepts especially in the archaic apocalypses and anthropogonies; deluge or flood puts an end to an exhausted and sinful humanity, and a new regenerated humanity is born, usually from a mythical `ancestor' who escaped the catastrophe, or from a lunar animal."Regeneration of humanity is thus always implied in its destruction.In the natural imaging, like the seasons, we assure ourselves, fall and dissolution are ever succeeded by renewal. "... just as the disappearance of the moon is never final, since it is necessarily followed by a new moon, the disappearance of man is not final either; in particular, even the disappearance of an entire humanity ... is never total ..."As the modern (historical) cultures translate this concept, "this optimism can be reduced to a consciousness of the normality of the cyclical catastrophe, to the certainty that it has a meaning and, above all, that it is never final... In the `lunar perspective', the death of the individual and the periodic death of humanity are necessary, even as the three days of darkness preceding the `rebirth' of the moon are necessary. The death of the individual and the death of humanity are alike necessary for their regeneration ... what predominates in all these cosmico-mythological lunar conceptions is the cyclical occurrence of what has been before, in a word, eternal return."
Due to the fact that the modern, predominantly Western model, of consciousness, primarily informed by Hebraic/Christian-Greek (teleological) influences, perceives time as a matrix for linear progress toward eschatological fulfillment, an end (and Eliade does not hesitate to analyze with his usual acumen - and here one must highlight the amazing passage where he claims that the concept of `ekpyrosis', the destruction of the world by fire, originates in early Iranian mythology - how Islam developed within this eschatological framework), we are forced to confront what he terms "the terror of history", the assertion (often stated by zealots of various stripes as fact) that human history, itself, must end.Recognition of this shift in human consciousness, from the archaic celebration of the repetition of nativity to the modern obsession with the limitation of mortality yields enormous explanatory power.In the face of the nuclear option, we must seriously consider how far such concepts as "resurrection", "rebirth" have tangible reality, not merely a traditionally assigned or contemplatively evoked meaning, but value as real states of affairs.
"Since the `invention' of faith, in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word (= for God all is possible), the man who has left the horizon of archetypes and repetition can no longer defend himself against that terror except through the idea of God . . .Any other situation of modern man leads, in the end, to despair.It is a despair provoked not by his own human existentiality, but by his presence in a historical universe in which almost the whole of mankind lives prey to a continual terror (even if not always conscious of it) . . .
In this respect, Christianity incontestably proves to be the religion of `fallen man': and to the extent to which modern man is irremediably identified with history and progress, and to which history and progress are a fall, both implying the final abandonment of the paradise of archetypes and repetition."These are the words with which the book concludes.If all that we are is the product of all that has been thought, they deserve the closest sort of reading by every thinking being.For the final abandonment, in the fine sense and print, means no less than the final abandonment of planet earth and the evolutionary project of humanity in full.

Ability to Recreate verses Historical Existentialism
.
I'm in awe over this book! It's a larger lens, a higher mountain to see religious and historical thought. Really, I am amazed at this book. 50 years after it is written and I've read hundreds of books and here I am dumb founded. Read some of the other amazon.com reviews here (some are excellent) and now I am adding to them.

Eliade relates two main types of persons. The archaic man and the modern. The archaic models his life on archetypes, similiar to Plato's "world of ideas," forsaking history in favor of such. He repeatedly and continually destroys all history and recreates himself in a new beginning. He does this by entering a timeless realm Eliade calls the illo tempore, a timeless and numinous death and rebirth, which he bases on cyclic events of some type.

The modern man negates all of this in favor of historicity. He measures all history and time, or the profane time, and bases his entire life on the meaning of such in present existence and all future decision making. However, without the archaic man's non-historical regenerative abilities to recreate himself in such timelessness, or in the sacred, in imitation of archetypes, the modern historical man faces extreme existential despair. But what saves the modern man from suicide and utter meaninglessness in relativism and nihilism; he joins to his historical self, either religious faith, cyclic theories, mysticism, science and philosophy.

Hegel suggests history (and all the evil in history) is never repeated and necessary for the evolution to higher ends. Only persons like Belinsky or Dostoeyski have resisted but weakly in that. Marx had made a science of history as the results of the class struggle, which ultimately fails and leaves us in our existential relativity.

So remedies are created to coincide with historical measurement, as in Nietzsche's Eternal Return,although cyclic in nature is not the Eternal Return of the Archaic man who regenerations a new beginning, but rather that of the Greek Heraclitus and Pythagorean thoughts, are the cyclic meanings needed to live a life of measured time and history apart from the archaic regenerative man of archetype models and rebirth into new beginnings. The same holds true for Oswald Spenglers biological conception of history and Heidegger's idea of historicity transcending all are what modern man must attach to his linear historical measurement.

While monotheism, the first to measure history and time encounters the timelessness of the illo tempore in the beginning of creation and in the "end" of the world or in Christianity in the second coming of the messiah. Unlike the archaic man who enters the new creation each and every time he recreates both himself and his world.

Eliade suggests that perhaps mankind will one day return to the archaic man of regeneration in repetition of rituals and meaning to cease measuring this time and enter in the timelessness, letting go of history and entering in the illo tempore.

(Archetype Non-Historical Regeneration Man)
The wind blows - but - gets continually reborn; or,
(Historical Man with Religious Faith)
Cling to your dusty mirror and hold God's hand.
(Historical Man without Religious Faith)
Or the mirror without dust would destroy the world.

And to sum it up, Archaic man had no history, repeated archetype models, destroying his past (all history) and recreating the beginning of time each year in a mystical, timeless moment in the illo tempore, all history erased. While modern man relies on history and profane time and gains either science, philosophy or religious faith to prevent him from dying in existential despair.

Now I'm reading this great book entitled, When Science Meets Religion, by Ian G. Barbour and reading of those with religious faith who conform the uncertainties of quantum physics with a God who controls such acausual events. Seeing this through Eliade's lens, I see this as an historical man's attempt to join religious faith to his history and science in order to prevent him from existential despair in the terror of history. For the archaic man none of this is needed, as he will erase all history, re-creating the beginning of time reborn in the timeless moment of illo tempore, not of some future time but of the present.

And while the modern man has history and faith, he also forms minority governments to control, organized and maintains his linear history. The majority are followers, freedom is seriously limited. The archaic man has complete freedom as each time cycle or year, to erase all history, to enter in the timeless moment of the archetype of illo tempore and re-create himself and his world.

I can't say enough for this book, this only a summary of a higher mountain to see humanity.

post-modern archetypes
Reading this book, I came to acknowledge in no modern scholar's analysis is there a possibility of divergence from "politically accepted" thought. To say a primitive (someone illiterate, living bounded into archetypes) has a theory of being is highly ridiculous, especially as the author himself acknowledges primitive man's disconfort in living outside the world of archetypes. To link an archetype (which is a form of instinct, with equivalents among other higher mammals) with philosophy, and even with the highest stance of the latter (ontology) is "mentally incorrect".

These pitiful relativistic stances should be immediately ignored by a serious person. Otherwise, the influences of Jung's theories are always apparent. As always, ideas aren't bad in themselves, but their interpretation makes them a vehicle of relativism.

According to Eliade, the archaic man lives in a world of archetypes and cyclical past, while for the "fallen" man of modern civilizations archetypes no longer exist and time is linear. This is obviously incorrect. His very idea that "we should respect other peoples cultures and not judge others as primitive" is an ALWAYS recurrent mindless ARCHETYPE of Post-Modern ages.

This book has changed my life! (really)
When I first became aquainted with the thought of Mircea Eliade it was through this book. It really changed the way I looked at the world.

The basic Eliade's idea that majority of basic beliefs of human beings about the world do not correspond to the reality but are merely inherited from the religious tradition of our ethnical group is the greatest insight that revolutionized my personal philosophy. After all, how many of our believes are unconsciously shaped by Judeo-Christian dogma? - not only the idea of history as having the beginning and the end which is analyzed in this book, but other ideas as well, such as the idea of death. We think it is bad to die. Why we think so? Because of our belief in soul and its death or possibility of suffering in hell. Tribals share with us the survival instinct which is basic for all mammals but aside from that they are not distressed by the idea of death because they believe that they return back to Mother Earth. Prove them wrong! After all we all come from the matter of this planet in material sense and return to it again, having lived our lives. To believe in the eternal return is more logical than to believe in some entity called "soul" which is separated from the body "once and for all" after death.

This is just a single thought on my part.
After reading this book, those of you who are ready to accept its ideas will undoubtly have more thoughts about the validity of our common-sense beliefs about reality.

Even if scientific materialism is true this is no great reason for pessimism - we are who we think we are! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Magisterial
This three volume series is an excellent overview of human thinking and aspiration.The accomplishment is magnificent, a life work.

Editing:Four Stars.Translations are always difficult.

Copy Editing:Five Stars.Very clean.

The Triumph of the Idea of Ideas
The final volume of the trilogy is the smallest, the most succinct and the most approachable of the three.After a brief review of the religions of Eurasia (from Turkey to Finland) we plunge in to the formative years of Christianity when the first step is taken toward ensuring an orthodoxy that would later be enforced with torture.Origen and Augusting, the two greatest writers of the church, are discussed in this context.

Next is the story of Islam - or rather Muhammed - and how he became a warrior-ruler, leading his tribe to ever larger victories over Christendom.The lonely years of Judaism (from the fall of the Roman Empire to late in the Middle Ages) is given a empathetic hearing before moving onto the church in the Middle Ages, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.Finally, a last look at Buddhism, the Tibetan way.ALways informative and entertaining, provocative with his conclusions.

Very good, just like the other parts of the series
Mircea Eliade could be reasonably considered as one of the Re-foundingFathers of modern study of religion. His History of Religious Ideas is thusone of the corner stones of modern research in this field. This particularpart of his history is as well written as the others. It deals very wellwith most of the improtant currents in mediaeval Christianity, includingthe spread of Christianity to Slav tribes, the Cluny rerform, the religiouslife associated with the rise of mendicant orders, Meister Eckhart, devotiomoderna but he does not forget about the rise of neopaganism in RenaissanceItaly, about the role of alchemy in religious feeling of the sixteenthcentury, he even ventures to say that modern physics was created almostunintentionally. This book is truly amazing.

There are also some downsides to the book. One, it cannot be taken as the"state-of-the-art" of religous study. Eliade has been surpassedby new research in the field. It is therefore better to use the book as ageneral background. Second, it has been shown that Eliade unfortunatelydeveloped the habit of sometimes stretching the truth to fit his analysis.He did not use this questionable method to such an extent as to render hiswhole analysis worthless but it does cast a shadow on his academichonesty.

BTW, I do not feel qualified to comment on his treatment ofreligious phenomena outside the Judeo-Christian cultural sphere. ... Read more

Book Description

First published in 1951, Shamanism soon became the standard work in the study of this mysterious and fascinating phenomenon. Writing as the founder of the modern study of the history of religion, Romanian émigré--scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) surveys the practice of Shamanism over two and a half millennia of human history, moving from the Shamanic traditions of Siberia and Central Asia--where Shamanism was first observed--to North and South America, Indonesia, Tibet, China, and beyond. In this authoritative survey, Eliade illuminates the magico-religious life of societies that give primacy of place to the figure of the Shaman--at once magician and medicine man, healer and miracle-doer, priest, mystic, and poet. Synthesizing the approaches of psychology, sociology, and ethnology, Shamanism will remain for years to come the reference book of choice for those intrigued by this practice.

Customer Reviews (23)

A classic.
The book market is flooded with books on "shamanism" but this one standsout far above the crowed.I can honestly say that out of the books on shamanism I've read this one is the best. It not only discusses the shamanic practices of the Native Americans and Asians but also analogous practices of the Indo-European peoples."Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy" is a classic anda must read for people who have an interest in the subject.

Four and a half, really
This is considered the grandtome of shamanic resources, and rightly so. For its time, it was the most complete reference on the topic, and while research since the 1950s has illuminated areas of knowledge that Eliade had no exposure to, nearly half a century after its first English translation Shamanism is still required reading for anyone interested in shamans and shamanism.

The first few chapters cover general shamanic subjects, such as being "called", the initiatory ritual and illness, and how shamans obtain their power and spirit helpers. These are followed by a number of chapters on shamanism in various regions of the world; not surprisingly, Siberia and surrounding areas get the most in-depth coverage. Finally, there's an excellent chapter on the various common elements found in shamanisms around the world, certain themes and practices that are universal, or very nearly so.

I'll admit that when I first bit into the foreword, I was a bit intimidated. It's excessively dry, even for academic writing, and I was wondering if I was going to suffer through hundreds of pages of this. However, once I got into the first chapter, I was pleasantly surprised to find that his heavily formal tone shifted to a much more informative and readable style. That's not to say that it's an easy read; it took me about two weeks to finish this off, and I found myself occasionally having to re-read paragraphs as I began to skim rather than comprehend.

I think really the only areas where I have any complaint whatsoever are primarily content based. While Eliade makes an excellent observation on the common elements of many shamanisms, I'd like to know his perspective (if any) on if there's anything significant about their differences. Unfortunately he died over two decades ago, so short of journeying to the underworld (or sky, depending on cosmology) to talk to him, I'll just have to weep that I'll never know for sure, at least not in this life. The other small gripe is his treatment of anything that deviates from a certain "standard" of shamanism as "degraded" or, in his words, "decadent". Given that the "classic" Siberian shamanism may have been influenced by middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, as well as more southerly Asian ones, some shifting and hybridization is to be expected anyway. A lot of his argument does center around the loss of the actual ecstatic "flight" through dance and other actions, replaced in some cultures by mediumship, feigned trance, and/or drug use. I'm going to have to read more to decide whether I really agree with his assessment of the latter as being lesser (especially the first and third) or not.

Still, overall, this is a must-read. Expect it to take some time (unless you really, really like academic writing). Take notes, or underline things. It's full of information, and while it should be supplemented with newer source material, a lot of it still stands quite firmly as a resource.

A much-respected classic by a much-respected investigator
A classic of proven value, it is an essential companion for anyone exploring shamanic realities - either as a scholar, as an explorer, or as a practitioner.

If you read only one book on the subject, make THIS the book.

A Masterpiece
Eliade is the greatest of the modern interpreters of myth and religious practice, and Shamanism, along with his Yoga: Immorality and Freedom, are his two most brilliant works. If you love the study of comparative religion any myth, you'll love this book.

Quite A Good Academic Material
Shamanism of Mircea Eliade was quite a good academic material that enlightened everyone who wished to understand about this subject. Full of explanations about why archaic peoples did shamanizing. ... Read more

Book Description
This guide to the world's religions, past and present, distills Eliade's three-volume History of Religious Ideas and sixteen-volume Encyclopedia of Religion into one up-to-date and accessible volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reliable, in-depth resource on world religions
A reference book on religions that is readable and even compelling. The detail on backgrounds and structural formats of 33 religious traditions helps the reader to begin developing a comprehensive view of worldreligions. The utter complexity of the subject needs a resource such asthis book once a person begins to get elementary details in mind. To seereligions "in the light of day" enables a person to makes onesown decision in an informed manner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Whew.
Yes, the sacred and the profane is discussed here. And guess what? They make sense. It's no secret, just sociology. Good sociology, too, none of your Discovery-Channel, sixth-tier, make every middle class viewer look down on those that are different from a Durkheim-style-deviance-arrogance and pray that they can forget just how screwed up they are kind of stuff. The good stuff. The meat, the bone and the marrow. Unapologetic, yet refined and in no way obscene. Great read. Well written, and, I can only assume, well-translated.

Be warned: The cover image on Amazon is not the one that comes on the book!!! The book you get from Amazon is a new-age style cover photograph of some half-photographed "natives" playing with a circle of candles. The nifty little negative portrait of the Triune God should have stayed. It was much more appropriate to the content.

A marvelous work
I read this book with a great excitement.It tells people about essence of our religion. In my opinion, this book is quite good companion for religious comparison study.

A brilliant introduction to the study of religion
I decided to read this book for a religion-course I'm taking, and I must say I'm happy I did! Mircea Eliade was a Rumanian historian of religions, philosopher and author, in addition to being a vaguely religious man himself. This book was written to serve as an introduction to the study of religion for new students and the interested layman, and it does so excellently. Eliade was interestingly enough a member of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, back home in Rumania, the organization of Corneliu Codreanu. In addition to this wonderful fact, he was also acquainted with Baron Julius Evola, so this is certainly one of "our own boys".

The book itself is, as the title implies, an attempt to show the difference between the archaic mans sacred conception of the cosmos, and the profane view of the world of today's "modern man". The first part of the book details the sacred space and the sacralisation of the world. What he means by this is the fact that so-to-speak all religions and the various races have traditions of themselves living near the centre of the world, axis mundi. This world pillar, known as Irminsûl to my own Germanic ancestors, was the place (mountain, tree, building, pillar etc.) where the world traditionally was highest and hence the underworld, the human world and the higher realm of heaven was connected the closest. The various races and peoples then thought that this was where Creation had begun, where the cosmos has flowed out from, and hence the most sacred space on Earth. Eliade then delves into some depth about this subject.

The second chapter is about holy time and myths. He shows how the archaic peoples thought of time as always recurring, going in cycles. The first break with this line of thought was with Judaism and later Christianity, who thought of history as a unique happening, centred on Christ and his coming. The archaic peoples did their rites and their religious cultism so that they could transform themselves back into the sacred eternal present time when the Gods performed the actions the myths mirror today.

The third chapter is about the holiness of nature and the comical view of ancient religion. He shows how ancient man conceived of their own role in the cosmos, and how their actions were supposed to mirror the actions of the creation of the cosmos. It's a very wide chapter that is difficult to summarize, but as everywhere else in the book he fills it up with example upon example from all over the world.

The final chapter is about the existence of humans and the holiness of life. He tells us how many traditions thought of the human body as its own cosmos. The opening at the top of the scull was the place where the soul would leap from at death, and hence some Indians have the tradition of crushing the scull of a recently deceased priest to ensure his soul's easy transcendence. He also mentions männerbunde and various initiations that served to give birth to man anew, after the initiation was complete, and the new sacred man arose. This chapter is also very wide and difficult to summarize, but the richness of the examples is splendid.

All in all, a book that is hard to characterize, but I've read it twice in two weeks now, so I guess that says it all. An excellent book that nearly is enough to make the most profane person catch a glimpse of the holy. Highly recommended!

(I read a different edition)

A compelling foundational model
Eliade's book is by nature limited to making general statements without extensive illustration and qualification. But the general statements he makes are fascinating. He makes the birth of the "world" and the birth of religion identical, since the "world" is by definition a meaningful and ordered space, and only a divine "hierophany" can establish a reference point for meaningful (& chaotic) space. Pre-religious man lives in a meaningless, homogeneous space, and therefore has no concept of the world.

This view sheds light on the association between religion and violence. The collision of two religions also represents the collision of two worlds, and the nothing is more terrifying that the destruction of the world. Of course religion is only the first source (on Eliade's account) of the "world"; today we have many non-religion sources of value from which a world-sense can emerge. Or perhaps "religion" has just taken on many new guises, even "non-religious" ones.

Eliade also discusses the recurrence of sacred time vs. the linear movement of profane time.

There are valuable reflections in the book on the hidden religiosity of modern, profane man. For all human beings without exception, meaningful existence is only possible when we respect some version of sacred space and sacred time.

Rich ideas for such a short book. Highly recommended, even if it does get a little repetitive.

A Magisterial Work on the Nature of the Sacred
In this book, Eliade writes first in an accesible, then in a most respectful style on religion, magic, initiation, mysticism, and the profane.From the outset, though the book's title states it concerns religion, in which the object of study begins with the Divine, and then continues on consequently to man, Eliade rather begins with man and then continues on consequently to God.Man is shown to create himself, his house, his cosmos, and his existential situation precludes the religious right up until a.d. 1950 (the date of this book's first publication).The author wisely points out profane man is a rather unique and new phenomenon in human history.Whether he is descriibing the initiation rituals of primitive societies, or the construction of a modern abode, Eliade skillfully shows like it or not, we are recreating the cosmos as the gods did before history.Without the slightest hint of a sense of humor, Eliade points out repeatedly that no matter how much modern profane man has attempted to divest Nature of the sacred, he still stubbornly, if unconsciously, sacralizes his environment.Over and over again.

This is a nice little book that provides a glimpse into what we are stubbornly trying to leave behind, to our own obvious detriment. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

History of Ideas, Volume I by Mircea Eliade
The product arrived on time as stipulated. Mircea Eliade is a must for students of mythology who want to go beyond a myth's story and come to understand how and why it was written, and why it remains eternal.

Sourcebook on religion.
An excellent source of information about early development of religion. It shows the evolution of human thought with respect to metaphysical matters.

The human and the spiritual
Mircea Eliade has spent a lifetime exploring the origins, meaning and mysteries of mankind's spiritual inner being. He is the Joseph Campbell of religion - not myth. This first volume was ably translated (from the French) into clear and direct English - a hallmark of his writing.It is difficult to speak knowingly of neolithic religion because the evidence is largely circumstantial and evolutionary.That is, we divine from our own religious present what must have existed prior to the forming of current ideas.

One of his main points is that peoples around the world, for whatever reason, seemed to be instinctually drawn toward the worship of something - an object, animal, human or unseen god or goddess. In this first volume he explores various cultures and their beliefs - the Mayas, Greeks, Iranians, neolithic man, Egypt, other Middle East groups...a dazzling array of cultures and societies.As the imagination grew, so did belief in an unseen world.

Of particular interest is the section on ancient Israeli beliefs and the origins of Yahweh.The chapters on religion in Greece were notable for their abundant detail.Even in the most isolated areas, the same rites and beliefs emerged - the idea of sacrifice, the belief in another life, the battle of good vs evil, the idea of holy representatives and eventually the thought of eternal life.

Great, but let me mention some criticisms
I like to say that Eliade's work is the first--but not the last--word in comparative religion. The best introduction to his thought is "Patterns in Comparative Religion."

The greatness of this history is that Eliade actually writes about almost everything, ever. So these three volumes are a solid introduction to the totality of religion. Since all of us lack familiarity with something, we can all fill in some significant gaps in our knowledge with these books.

But unfortunately, it's not the best introduction to any specific thing that it covers. If you already know about some subject, then Eliade's coverage of it proves completely useless and superficial. It seems that Eliade's purpose was to show how every important religious phenomenon in history relates to his pet theories. In his defense, perhaps this is simply inevitable when one person tries to write about all of religion in 1000 pages. Certainly, there is nothing else like this out there because the task is enormous. If nothing else, the fact that Eliade researched and wrote this is amazing.

Wonderful
This is a superb series on the history of religion, and incidentally serves as a fine introduction to comparative religion. The only real weakness is in this first volume: I've never like the treatment of paleolithic religion here, which seems abrupt. But this caveat is far too minor to dissuade anyone from reading these wonderful books. ... Read more

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Enligtening
I am writing on a paper on satanism in Norway(therefore badly written english). This essyes from good old Mirca, is a good phenomenological point of wiew. I think he sets things into context, but for my case it is a bitold. If you want a general introduction from the phenomenlogical school inthe occult tradiction you migth as well staert with this book. ... Read more

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Exquisite Philosophy of the "Butterfly Dream"
Youth Without Youth is a powerful and insightful novella written by Mircea Eliade, the Romanian philosopher and historian (1907-1986).The book which sets in the pre World War II era , tells a story of an ageing professor, Dominic Matei, coming to the end of the line, whose mysterious regeneration and rejuvenation make him a target for hunting down by the Nazis and others as well as having to confront a whole range of issues and dilemmas now that he is made young again with superhuman powers and given a second chance in life.The story moves through different countries and cultures from Romania, Switzerland, Malta to India spanning the richness of Eastern and Western cultures.

This is a thriller, love story and the "Butterfly Dream" philosophy of the Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi(Chuang-tzu) - the dream-like nature of reality - all wrapped in one.

This thoughtful and insightful work has now been adapted for the screen in 2007 by the award-winning Francis Ford Coppola of the "Godfather" fame, his latest and most defining film in almost ten years.I have great hopes that Coppola, the dependable and talented producer/director and Tim Roth, an excellent and highly intelligent actor/director who takes his art/craft with utmost gravity (playing the leading role Dominic Matei) will do justice to this exquisite book.Whatever you do, don't miss the book and the film! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

strong on ideas, research inconsistent
As usual Eliade spins wonderful philosophical and spiritual ideas laid over history. And they make engrossing reading. I don't know how much one can trust the historical facts cited throughout this work. For example Eliade says the earliest known metallurgy was in the mountains of Armenia in 1200-1200 BC. In fact it is now widely accepted that the Ban Chiang (present-day NE Thailand) was forging bronze tools and ornaments at least by 2200 BC, possibly earlier.

Still, well worth reading for the ideas.

Great Introductions to a fascinating subject
If I had my time over again I would read these three books on alchemy in the following order:All of them are excellent in their own sphere to introduce a complex process.

(1) The Forge and the Crucible - Eliade
This is an excellent prehistory of alchemy showing the patterns of thought out of which Alchemy most probably arose.An easy read.

(2) Anatomy of the Soul - Edinger
Set out according to seven processes involved in alchemy Calcinatio, Solutio, Coagulatio, Sublimatio, Mortificatio, Separatio, Coniunctio, this is an accessible book that puts each process in reasonably neat boxes, (though the considerable overlap and intermingling is acknowledged).The approach is somewhat mechanical.

(3) Alchemy, an Introduction... - Von Franz.
More 'organic' than Edinger, Von Franz has a very warm and human touch.She deals with the origins of alchemy in Egypt and Greece and delves into the 'Aurora Consurgens', attributed to Aquinas.She includes relevent and interesting case material.Being a transcription of lectures, it is a little haphazard, though none the less informative for that.

TAKING A GLANCE TO THE MYSTERIES OF ALCHEMY
Lucidly and masterly written, this study on the origins and meaning of ancient Alchemy is a highly useful and recommendable one. As always, M. Eliade has collected a vast amount of data concerning this issue and has reached far-reaching conclusions as for the value, the role and the meaning of the otherwise rather vague world of Alchemy. Very important for anyone interested in knowing about the theme. ... Read more

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A Quest for Relevance--Still Relevant Today
The title chapter of the book makes the book as a whole worth a good read through, especially if you are in or are influenced by the field of Religious Studies.Already in the 1960's, Eliade was lamenting the over-specialization running rampant in many humanities fields which tended to make research about little more than an exercise in pointing out random curiosities rather than contributing to the ongoing cultural discourse of our own society.If you've ever felt like academia has grown too detached and irrelevant in recent decades, you'll find a kindred spirit in Eliade. ... Read more