Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago (1907–1986)

AI overview

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian-American scholar who studied religion and mythology across many cultures and became a influential professor at the University of Chicago during the mid-20th century. His work matters because he shaped how people understand religious practices and beliefs worldwide, developing influential theories about the role of the sacred in human societies.

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Person · Open Library

Born: 13 Mar 1907
Died: 22 Apr 1986
Works: 304

Top works

Le sacré et le profane
Vom Heiligen in der Kunst
Die grossen Mythen der Menschheit
Noaptea de sânziene
رساله در تاريخ اديان

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: Romania
Active from: 1907-03-09
Active to: 1986-04-22

Discogs

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 73
Total plays: 4,677

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

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Quotes

“The crude product of nature, the object fashioned by the industry of man, acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality.”
“In virtue of this, the artisan is a connoisseur of secrets, a magician; thus all crafts include some kind off initiation and are handed down by an occult tradition. He who 'makes' real things is he who knows the secret of making them.”
“The Experience of Sacred Space makes possible the "founding of the world": where the sacred Manifests itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence.”
“For those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into supernatural reality. In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality.”
“A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious. To try to grasp the essence of such phenomenon by means of physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, linguistics, art or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and irreducible element in it — the element of the sacred.”
“Psychoanalysis justifies its importance by asserting that it forces you to look to and accept reality. But what sort of reality? A reality conditioned by the materialistic and scientific ideology of psychoanalysis, that is, a historical product...”

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Wikidata facts

Image: Expoziție Mircea Eliade, fragment (cropped).jpg

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Commons category: Mircea Eliade
name in native language: Mircea Eliade
date of birth: 1907-03-09
date of death: 1986-04-22

Sources (8)

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Article

Mircea Eliade ( Romanian: [ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a eliˈade]; March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but (at least in the minds of the religious) actually participate in them.

Eliade's literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ('La Nuit Bengali' or 'Bengal Nights', 1933), Noaptea de Sânziene ('The Forbidden Forest', 1955), Isabel și apele diavolului ('Isabel and the Devil's Waters'), and Romanul Adolescentului Miop ('Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent', 1989); the novellas Domnișoara Christina ('Miss Christina', 1936) and Tinerețe fără tinerețe ('Youth Without Youth', 1976); and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ('The Secret of Dr. Honigberger', 1940) and La Țigănci ('With the Gypsy Girls', 1963).