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Introspective
Perhaps it's the journalist in me that enjoys knowing the thoughts of other people. Mircea Eliade left his thoughts with us. This section of his journal covers the years 1979-1985. It was a time he was active as a scholar. His description of the sorts of things I relate to, such as reading, acquiring books, writing, preparing presentations and such sort of reinforce the work. I see it as a continuation in a sense. Scholarly pursuits continue from one person to another, from one generation to another. That is not to say I agree with him. It is simply to say I identify with the arena in which he worked. In fact, agreement on issues is not what I am talking about here.
If you are like me and enjoy reading the intimate thoughts of a writer/researcher/inquirer then you will like this book. ... Read more

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Written by one of the most distinguished students of Romanian literature, this volume focuses on the works of Mircea Eliade and analyzes his intellectual concerns and contributions. Eugen Simon traces the theme of the "myth" which was so prominent in Eliade's historical perception, and critically evaluates it in terms of Eliade's work. ... Read more

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Christianity & Contemporary Viewed In Hegelian Dialectics
This is a mind challenging book and worth the read. I wish it was more available. It looks like I have read only a portion of this book, as the article I have read bears the same title of `Mircea Eliade and the Dialectic of the Sacred' but is only one essay in a series of essays in another book written by Thomas J.J. Altizer along with other essays written by William Hamilton, in a book entitled, `Radical Theology and The Death of God.'

First of all, it would be advisable to have read Mircea Eliade's, The Sacred and The Profane to get an idea of what each is and its relation to history and time verses the illo tempre Eliade speaks about.

The essay (book) of Altizer is based on Hegelian dialectics. To put that briefly, Hegel devised a system of dialectics that can be summed up in three stages of reasoning:

1. The stage in which the subject spoken of is affirms, or posits itself as thesis;
2. The state of negation, limitation, antithesis, which is a necessary corollary of the previous state. Anotherwards, the affirmation negates the other.
3. The state of synthesis, a return to itself as a union of opposites (Coincidentia oppositorum), which follows the above two stages in a final coming together of those opposites whose initial opposition or contradiction occasioned its own creation.

This is equivalent to two opposites being two sides of the same coin, so it is they are the same in this respect. One must negate the other in order to synthesize with it.

In this respect Kierkegaard negates the objectivity of traditional Christianity for subjectivity, where they unify in a Christianity that is not bound to traditional symbols and historical one-time events, but a living reality in the present moment.

Altizer relates:

`In so far as faith in its Christian expression moves through the factuality of estrangement and death, it can never accept a mere negation of the profane. Nor for that matter can a faith accepting the reality of the Fall seek an unfallen sacred or a primordial moment of time. Only an actual reversal of a fallen and profane reality can lead to a final participation that transcends a primordial Beginning. Such a reversal would be consistently and radically dialectical. It would occur by means of what Hegel terms `pure negativity' or the `negation of negation', and it would move through the reality of the profane to a final or eschatological sacred that reconciles the profane with itself. Despite the fact that Buddhist logic is grounded in negation, Th.. Stcherbatsky, in his magisterial study of Buddhist logic, points out that Indian logic has never known the negation of negation. Only an acceptance of the reality of a negative or fallen reality can make possible a Coincidentia oppositorum that is a coming together of the dual reality of the sacred and the profane. It is precisely this coincidental of the opposing realms of the sacred and the profane that makes possible Christianity's celebration of the incarnation as an actual and real event, an event that has occurred and does occur in concrete time and space, and an event effecting a real transformation of the world. Faith, in this consistently dialectical sense, must oppose or negate a sacred that is an unmoving Eternity or a quiescent Totality. A sacred that annuls or transcends the reality of the profane can never become incarnate in a fallen form, and thus it could never affect or transform the given or immediate reality of a fallen world. Only a sacred that negates its own unfallen or primordial form can become incarnate in the reality of the profane. To the extent that faith or vision knows an eternal and unmoving sacred it can never know the reality of the Incarnation.` pp. 150-151

Kierkegaard conceived of recollection as a backward repetition, as in Pagan religions, while repetition itself is a forward movement. "Whereas the backward movement of recollection arises from the judgment that all that truly is has been, the movement of repetition embodies the present and actual becoming of an existence which has been. Nevertheless, repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions; for what is recollected has been, is repeated backwards, whereas repetition properly so called is recollected forwards.." P. 151.

`When the incarnation is understood as a descent into the concrete, or as a movement from a primordial and unfallen sacred to an actually fallen profane, then it cannot be conceived as not affecting a supposedly eternal Godhead, or as being a static or unchanging extension of the God who is the transcendence of Being. Nor for that matter can an understanding of the Incarnation as a process of repetition allow the Incarnation to be confined to a once and for all event of the past. A theology which remains bound to the language and imagery of the New Testament must refuse the very thesis that the Incarnation is a forward movement or process.' Pp., 153-154

So, if Christianity tries to recollect back to the original paradise and creation and God, then it becomes static in denying itself as as foward movement of renewal and rebirth. But if it is to go forward in a dynamic continuing renewal and transformation, then it denys the original primordial as being the sacred to return to.

So it stands, that God is dead in that we have left the primordial and must return to such to restore. Or in opposition, that God is dead and we must move forward in a renewal in the death of God in the rebirth to acheive what his death has accomplished; the transformation of humanity. ... Read more

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The Lure of the Late Eliade Mircea Eliade was the 20th century's foremost historian of religions. This is the first book devoted to the last years of Eliade's life when he was writing A History of Religious Ideas, a work he considered his magnum opus. It draws on his personal journals to describe the context in which the History was written. The reader is invited both to explore his understanding of religion and to experience his effort to construct "a truly universal history of religions." It also responds to Eliade's History by raising critical questions regarding its scientific status, his relationship to Goethe, and allegations of involvement in fascism in the 1930s. It suggest how Eliade's project can be enhanced through the recent work of Robert Cummings Neville. ... Read more

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This anthology is a collection of key essays by and about the Romanian-American Historian of Religions, Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). It introduces the beginning student to the terms and categories of Eliade's understanding of religious behaviour as a universal phenomenon: apprehension of the sacred by homo religiosus, humanity's religious mode through hierophanies, revelatory events and objects. The analysis of religious behaviour as the restoration of illud tempus, an alternative continuum of sacred time, through myth, ritual, and symbol is a central feature of that understanding, assumed to have an authentic application in the struggle for freedom from the human condition. As well as Eliade's own understanding and its implication for the study of Religions, the collection alerts the reader to the critical response to the problems of his thought. This includes the issues raised by Eliade's biography, politics, and career as one of the most successful and influential historians of religion of the late 20th Century. Moving from inter-war Romania, through India during the struggle for independence, to war-time London and Lisbon, post-war Paris, and finally to America in the 60s and 70s, Eliade's career traces a complex trajectory involving many problems central to the academic study of religion and culture. ... Read more