Sunday, March 13, 2022

Mar. 13: Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian of religion

BORN MARCH 13:

Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) Romanian historian of religion, philosopher, and fiction writer. Few thinkers have influenced my worldview as much as has Dr. Eliade (the advisor for my unfinished PhD had Eliade as his advisor for his PhD). His framing of religious thought in works like The Sacred and the Profane (the "two modes of being in the world") or The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History is as useful as anything I've encountered. The books are short but deep, and deserve (require!) rereading. His book Shamanism popularized that word in religious discourse in English; From Primitives to Zen is a collection of religious texts that go, well, from indigenous cultures to Zen Buddhism (but excluding Judaism and Christianity as already readily available). Eliade is a must-read for anyone interested in humanity's approaches to "that world."


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