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ynaa's review
4.0
Nu te-ai aștepta ca același om care a scris Maitreyi — despre care ai putea spune că a "trăit" chiar gândurile protagonistului — să scrie o carte ca asta.
În continuare sunt reticentă când vine vorba de stil, însă acum nu mai e beletristic, ci pură analiza asupra religiei. E de apreciat obiectivitatea cu care Eliade privește subiectul pe care-l explorează. Mult mai bine pusă la punct decât mă gândeam.
În continuare sunt reticentă când vine vorba de stil, însă acum nu mai e beletristic, ci pură analiza asupra religiei. E de apreciat obiectivitatea cu care Eliade privește subiectul pe care-l explorează. Mult mai bine pusă la punct decât mă gândeam.
shanviolinlove's review
2.0
Excellent anthropological analysis, but I would rate Eliade as a first-rate historian before approaching philosophy of religion. He conducts an analysis of the religious man based primarily of his views of a primordial worshipper and does not fully take into account how Christianity differs in terms of goals: the Christian man's goal is not necessarily to become the Center and return to the origin, although he does nod to the fact that the sacred time for Christianity is influenced more on the life of Jesus Christ than on the creation of the world. Eliade supports an argument that man cannot attain this sacred understanding if he continues along this line of "progress" that ever travels away from the Origin. He does not, however, provide any solution for the generation that moves away from the primitive into the future.
zachbrumaire's review against another edition
4.0
Though at times this classic gestures at useful or interesting theoretical frameworks, is failure to ground it's subject matter or engage in self critique hardly allow it to transcend the fascist subtext of both it's own content and it's authors life, in contrast to an author like Schmitt.
pidgevorg's review
4.0
Interesting read, as long as you interpret it as a philosophy text, not as the "history of religion" text it pretends to be. There is no systematic or consistent historical analysis here. Instead, claims of a mostly speculative philosophical nature are made, and random examples from various cultures are thrown in ad hoc to lend these claims credence. I'm no expert in anthropology, but I couldn't help noticing how some ideas were corroborated mostly by Middle Eastern traditions, while others exclusively by Australian ones, and then another idea would be introduced and suddenly African myths were brought in as examples, whereas they were hardly even mentioned before... and so on. Basically, Eliade noticed some philosophical ideas cropping up here and there in various culture's religions, grabbed the ones he thought were the most interesting from a modern perspective, did some free-form extrapolation and syncretization to make it look like these ideas were universal... and there you go, we have a consistent, coherent philosophical framework on which "religious man" supposedly based their theological world view.
But what we actually have is the philosophical framework that Mircea Eliade THOUGHT religious people should have. Or would have, if all of the various religious traditions got together, pooled their philosophical resources, and made a commitment to come up with a consistent, coherent philosophical framework. Which of course never actually happened and probably never will. But I'm still glad Eliade went there and speculated about it. It's a valuable thought exercise, from a philosophical point of view. But a crappy way to do empirical research, from a historical point of view, for anyone who is actually looking for that kind of thing.
As for the book's style, it pretty much practices what it preaches. It presents its ideas about the circular and repetitive nature of the religious view of place/time... in a very circular and repetitive way. And this is probably hell on the nerves of any serious researchers trying to get any useful insights out of his book. But for a casual reader like me, who is hoping not just for information but also for entertainment... well, it makes the book both easy to follow and fun, so a great stylistic choice.
But what we actually have is the philosophical framework that Mircea Eliade THOUGHT religious people should have. Or would have, if all of the various religious traditions got together, pooled their philosophical resources, and made a commitment to come up with a consistent, coherent philosophical framework. Which of course never actually happened and probably never will. But I'm still glad Eliade went there and speculated about it. It's a valuable thought exercise, from a philosophical point of view. But a crappy way to do empirical research, from a historical point of view, for anyone who is actually looking for that kind of thing.
As for the book's style, it pretty much practices what it preaches. It presents its ideas about the circular and repetitive nature of the religious view of place/time... in a very circular and repetitive way. And this is probably hell on the nerves of any serious researchers trying to get any useful insights out of his book. But for a casual reader like me, who is hoping not just for information but also for entertainment... well, it makes the book both easy to follow and fun, so a great stylistic choice.
virtualmima's review
2.5
Roland Barthes does a much better job at deconstructing the mythologies of the secular world. Eliade is too reductionistic, essentialist, and ethnocentric. Also repetitive. He's right to say that even most atheists are still usually stuck in a religious mentality, but it comes from the wrong place. It's residue from millennia of religion, and it will take some time for the notions of sacred and profane to disappear.
alex_emilia_smith's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
leelulah's review
4.0
It's perfect for non initiated people since it's an introductory book to the symbols of religion that still have influnce in our lives despite our actual "atheism". Maybe you'll have to look up some words at first, but it really gets better and you get the ideas across when reading so I'd recommend it to anyone interested in this topic. It reminded me a bit of Jung's work with less psychological analysis and complexity indeed. But I could pretty much say that the conclusion is the same even if Eliade's intention is not to prove the existence of the unconscious collective imagination like Jung does, but it clearly defines a common pattern besides religious symbols that explain the nature of myth compared to some asian religions and the Judeo-Christian tradition and reveals it in a completely non pretentious accesible way.