Eliade and Freud are intellectual brothers. I just know it. I can prove it with science.
After reading The Sacred and the Profane, it is easy to see why Eliade has become the Freud of religious studies: both are provocative and influential, both have written seminal texts for their fields, and both draw conclusions based on dubious scholarship. As we shall discuss below, Eliade does indeed offer some extremely fascinating insights into the nature of universal religious experience, especially pertaining to sacred space and time. Yet, stimulating as these suggestions might be, hardly any of them are documented in any legitimate way. It seems that Eliade is examining these cultures in a cursory way, fitting their rituals and practices into his already existing system that he had dreamed up while traveling to exotic locations and scribbling in a journal. With this being said, we must do Eliade the honor of honestly grappling with his ideas, which are indeed important for the study of religious phenomenology.
Eliade’s entire project centers around his understanding of hierophany—the sacred, divine interruption into the mundane and profane world. Eliade exposits the culture of “religious man,”[1] the element of humanity that seeks to enchant the world, taking a perspective that sees the sacred in the profane, even to the point where “The cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany.”[2] Eliade suggests that “religious man” has ordered his civilization around the axis mundi, or “the center of the world.” In terms of physical, ontological experience, religious man sees this center as the point of communication between the sacred and profane realms. More crudely, Eliade contends that this is where religious man is ensured communication with the gods.[3] Thus, religious communities practice a spirituality of proximity, in which spiritual sustenance is gained by orienting oneself and one’s world around this axis mundi in a real and physical way.[4] Because of this need to always live at the center, religious man orders his universe as a microcosm within a microcosm, in order to reflect the true order of things. Thus, living near the center of the world reflects the imago mundi. Therefore, religious man sees any settlement of a new territory as an imitation of the divine cosmogony at the beginning of time. Each new creation—of a community, for example—is seen as a sacred act, a conquering of chaos.[5] Since this reproduction of the divine act is necessitated for any good creation, it must be repeated mythically through ritual each year: ritual is seen as the perpetual recreation of cosmogony, hence the need for sacred, liturgical time. The theme of returning to a fresh, strong creation continually is prominent in the thought of religious man. This requires an eternal return to the “indefinitely repeatable” mythic time:
Hence religious man lives in two kinds of time, of which the more important, sacred time, appears under the paradoxical aspect of a circular time, reversible and recoverable, a sort of eternal mythic present that is periodically reintegrated by means of rites.[6]
Liturgical time too plays into Eliade’s main theme of perpetual recreation of the cosmogony, encapsulated in the concepts of templum—the spatial element of the sacred, and tempus—the temporal equivalent. In this way, sacred time fulfills the religious nostalgia for original, perfect creation. To meet this “nostalgia for a paradisal situation,” religious man invokes ritual, a means by which these communities can return to the original state of creation.[7]
This spirituality of spatial and temporal proximity, says Eliade, is what defines cosmic, universal religion. These conclusions seem to make sense, and they are fine conjectures; unfortunately, they can remain only that. In the end, it seems that Eliade too neatly sums up the religious experience of a great many communities, rarely citing any concrete experiences. This, unfortunately, reflects the method of scholarship during Eliade’s time. Ultimately, Eliade shows himself to be captive to the moods of modernism, as his final quote betrays: “Here the considerations of the historian of religions ends. Here begins the realm of problems proper to the philosopher, and psychologist, and even the theologian.”[8] Try as he might, Eliade cannot seem to shed the patronizing and insulting approach to religion, treating it merely as a quaint sociological phenomenon and not a legitimate, real encounter with the divine. This is where Eliade again becomes the Freud of comparative religion. Just as Freud developed his theories of psychoanalysis primarily out of observations about himself, Eliade too, it would seem, arrives at many of his conclusions as remedies for his own personal struggles. This is my take: Eliade is so hopelessly entangled in the godlessness of modernism and, secretly or subtly, he hates it. For example, Eliade routinely bemoans the failings of modernism:
…[the desacralization of the human dwelling] undertaken by the industrial societies, a transformation made possible by the desacralization of the cosmos accomplished by scientific thought and above all by the sensational discoveries of chemistry.[9]
This desacralization ultimately culminates in the only feasible fate of unadulterated modernism: secularization, that time “when the sense of the religiousness of the cosmos becomes lost.”[10] With this being said, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the longing religious nostalgia of Eliade’s religious man is really his own desire to undo the disenchanting effects of modernism. Perhaps secretly, Eliade wants religion but his modernistic commitments do not allow him to have it. In this way, Freud’s Oedipus complex and defense mechanisms are Eliade’s axis mundi and liturgical time.
[1] To Terah, Kendra, Danielle, and whomever else it may concern, I am not using “religious man” to be a chauvinist; I merely use it because this is the language that Eliade himself employs.
[2] Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York: Harcourt Inc., 1959), 12.
[3] Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 26.
[4] E.g. “…our world is holy ground because it is the place nearest to heaven, because from here, from our abode, it is possible to reach heaven; hence our world is a high place.” Ibid, 39.
[5] See 47-48.
[6] Ibid, 70. This mythic time, says Eliade, is rejected by Christianity, which espouses a linear model of history in which real, concrete history is sanctified by the Incarnation of Christ.
[7] Ibid, 92.
[8] Ibid, 213. Heaven forbid the theologian might have anything to say about religion! He should have started with the theologian.
[9] Ibid, 51.
[10] Ibid, 107.
Eliade’s entire project centers around his understanding of hierophany—the sacred, divine interruption into the mundane and profane world. Eliade exposits the culture of “religious man,”[1] the element of humanity that seeks to enchant the world, taking a perspective that sees the sacred in the profane, even to the point where “The cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany.”[2] Eliade suggests that “religious man” has ordered his civilization around the axis mundi, or “the center of the world.” In terms of physical, ontological experience, religious man sees this center as the point of communication between the sacred and profane realms. More crudely, Eliade contends that this is where religious man is ensured communication with the gods.[3] Thus, religious communities practice a spirituality of proximity, in which spiritual sustenance is gained by orienting oneself and one’s world around this axis mundi in a real and physical way.[4] Because of this need to always live at the center, religious man orders his universe as a microcosm within a microcosm, in order to reflect the true order of things. Thus, living near the center of the world reflects the imago mundi. Therefore, religious man sees any settlement of a new territory as an imitation of the divine cosmogony at the beginning of time. Each new creation—of a community, for example—is seen as a sacred act, a conquering of chaos.[5] Since this reproduction of the divine act is necessitated for any good creation, it must be repeated mythically through ritual each year: ritual is seen as the perpetual recreation of cosmogony, hence the need for sacred, liturgical time. The theme of returning to a fresh, strong creation continually is prominent in the thought of religious man. This requires an eternal return to the “indefinitely repeatable” mythic time:
Hence religious man lives in two kinds of time, of which the more important, sacred time, appears under the paradoxical aspect of a circular time, reversible and recoverable, a sort of eternal mythic present that is periodically reintegrated by means of rites.[6]
Liturgical time too plays into Eliade’s main theme of perpetual recreation of the cosmogony, encapsulated in the concepts of templum—the spatial element of the sacred, and tempus—the temporal equivalent. In this way, sacred time fulfills the religious nostalgia for original, perfect creation. To meet this “nostalgia for a paradisal situation,” religious man invokes ritual, a means by which these communities can return to the original state of creation.[7]
This spirituality of spatial and temporal proximity, says Eliade, is what defines cosmic, universal religion. These conclusions seem to make sense, and they are fine conjectures; unfortunately, they can remain only that. In the end, it seems that Eliade too neatly sums up the religious experience of a great many communities, rarely citing any concrete experiences. This, unfortunately, reflects the method of scholarship during Eliade’s time. Ultimately, Eliade shows himself to be captive to the moods of modernism, as his final quote betrays: “Here the considerations of the historian of religions ends. Here begins the realm of problems proper to the philosopher, and psychologist, and even the theologian.”[8] Try as he might, Eliade cannot seem to shed the patronizing and insulting approach to religion, treating it merely as a quaint sociological phenomenon and not a legitimate, real encounter with the divine. This is where Eliade again becomes the Freud of comparative religion. Just as Freud developed his theories of psychoanalysis primarily out of observations about himself, Eliade too, it would seem, arrives at many of his conclusions as remedies for his own personal struggles. This is my take: Eliade is so hopelessly entangled in the godlessness of modernism and, secretly or subtly, he hates it. For example, Eliade routinely bemoans the failings of modernism:
…[the desacralization of the human dwelling] undertaken by the industrial societies, a transformation made possible by the desacralization of the cosmos accomplished by scientific thought and above all by the sensational discoveries of chemistry.[9]
This desacralization ultimately culminates in the only feasible fate of unadulterated modernism: secularization, that time “when the sense of the religiousness of the cosmos becomes lost.”[10] With this being said, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the longing religious nostalgia of Eliade’s religious man is really his own desire to undo the disenchanting effects of modernism. Perhaps secretly, Eliade wants religion but his modernistic commitments do not allow him to have it. In this way, Freud’s Oedipus complex and defense mechanisms are Eliade’s axis mundi and liturgical time.
[1] To Terah, Kendra, Danielle, and whomever else it may concern, I am not using “religious man” to be a chauvinist; I merely use it because this is the language that Eliade himself employs.
[2] Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York: Harcourt Inc., 1959), 12.
[3] Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 26.
[4] E.g. “…our world is holy ground because it is the place nearest to heaven, because from here, from our abode, it is possible to reach heaven; hence our world is a high place.” Ibid, 39.
[5] See 47-48.
[6] Ibid, 70. This mythic time, says Eliade, is rejected by Christianity, which espouses a linear model of history in which real, concrete history is sanctified by the Incarnation of Christ.
[7] Ibid, 92.
[8] Ibid, 213. Heaven forbid the theologian might have anything to say about religion! He should have started with the theologian.
[9] Ibid, 51.
[10] Ibid, 107.
posted by ryan tafilowski at 4:35 PM
5 Comments:
damn it, you win. i should stop being competative.
and secondly, i don't care if you use "religious man" it's what Eliade used and you can even call God a "he" if you like--gasp!
So maybe Eliade’s work is an example of confirmation bias or projection and of course he’s a modernist. The things that you point out about his work and method are important to recognize in considering how to appropriate his findings but be nice to the guy. For one, you can hardly expect academia of the 50s to adhere to the academic standards of 2007; secondly, everyone comes to an area of study with their commitments, prejudices, and expectations; to deny this or bemoan it would indeed be modernist. Also, Eliade recognizes that a sense of mythology and sacredness is never absent from a person’s life and I felt that his attitude was as neutral as can be expected. I appreciated that at the end he recognizes the limits of his descriptive measures and acknowledges the place of philosophy, psychology, and theology for deeper, more theoretical, and prescriptive measures.
and sorry for swearing at you. :)
Remember, the one difference between Freud and Eliade, to which you allude, is that Eliade refrains from speaking of the pathology of religion and tries to enjoy what the religious [person] has to offer.
BTW, when did K.R. swear?
Oh, was it "damn it"?
Hi,
I think that, more than Freud, Lacan was intellectually close to Eliade, using "structures" to explore inconscient, as Eliade did with myths. Freud used a more generic approach, and suggested some infeodation to social, although Eliade was in some way an "integrist" of the real world. Freud considered religion as a delusion, but suggested individuals to fonction in the material world with some degree of collusion with a personal religion; Eliade tried to escape from all material illusions to reach the real, avoiding any static live, walking through hierophanies without any compromising.
Post a Comment
<< Home