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scheu's review against another edition
5.0
Intriguing study of the cyclical nature of myth and history in ancient cultures. A good companion for Campbell, and unlike Fraser, it's short! (I prefer a small digestible idea to large, chewy ones)
evan_streeby's review against another edition
1.0
I hated this book. It was short and I decided to give it my time, but it suffers awfully from three glaring flaws
1. The abhorrent, Jungian-type analysis is essentially an axiom of this text. Lathered with nonsense about how “Plants are only regarded as healing due to them having been referenced as benefitting gods/heroes of the past”, which entail an exhausting number of “It’s clearly A, because it’s A” statements that read like a Jordan Peterson speech
2. It wants to generalize everything; cultures, mythologies, etc. I understand this was in vogue for ethnographies and psychology of the era; how it became so is a mystery.
3. It states it’s thesis on page 1, and then repeats it two or three times every single page all the way through. There is little meaningful diversity of example, and when there are new examples they seem contrived.
I gained nothing from this at all
1. The abhorrent, Jungian-type analysis is essentially an axiom of this text. Lathered with nonsense about how “Plants are only regarded as healing due to them having been referenced as benefitting gods/heroes of the past”, which entail an exhausting number of “It’s clearly A, because it’s A” statements that read like a Jordan Peterson speech
2. It wants to generalize everything; cultures, mythologies, etc. I understand this was in vogue for ethnographies and psychology of the era; how it became so is a mystery.
3. It states it’s thesis on page 1, and then repeats it two or three times every single page all the way through. There is little meaningful diversity of example, and when there are new examples they seem contrived.
I gained nothing from this at all
bookwyrmsam's review
The first few chapters of this were assigned for class. I thought since I was already halfway through I might push through the rest, but I was already skimming a lot and not really getting anything out of the text. It isn't super engrossing without the context of what Eliade is referencing all the time.
ndz's review against another edition
4.0
La mayor parte de este libro está dedicada a temas que Eliade aborda más extensamente en "Tratado sobre la historia de las religiones y "Lo sagrado y lo profano". Su mayor aportación está en las últimas diez páginas, cuando hace una comparación entre las sociedades ahistóricas ("primitivas") y las que "hacen historia".
mery_katcharava's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
iluvatarreads's review against another edition
5.0
Mircea'nın "beni okumaya bu kitaptan başlayın" dediği eseri: Ebedi Dönüş Mitosu. Diğer adıyla Eternal Return.
Tarih Felsefesi 101 kitabı sayılabilecek nitelikte bir kitap. "Ebedi dönüş", Mircea Eliade tarafından, dini davranışları yorumlamak için ortaya atılmış bir fikirdir; yani, davranışlarla ifade edilen bir inançtır (bazen dolaylı, ancak çoğu zaman açıkça): Kişinin, efsanelerde anlatılan olayların gerçekleştiği zaman olan "mitik çağ" ile ya 'modernleşebileceği' ya da ona 'dönebileceği' inancı.
Eliade kitabında, 'arkaik' insanın tarihdışı bağlamında var olduğuna işaret ettiği bir tür tarih felsefesine giriyor: tarih, bizim anlayışımızın aksine geçmiş değil günümüzdür, sadece geçmiş olay ve arketiplerin taklidinden ibarettir, tekerrürdür.
Bu kitabı okurken, bu ilkenin, her insanın en derin çekirdeğinde bile var olup olmadığını ve “modern” her şeyin kaçınılmaz bir şekilde bu kadar ucuz, basit, anlamsız ve hatta aldatıcı görünmesinin nedeni olup olmadığını merak etmeden duramadım.
Kitap, kimin daha özgür olduğunu tartıştıkları 'arkaik' ve 'modern' insan arasındaki hayali bir diyalog ile son bulur. Modern insan, insanın tarihi kendi başına yaratamayacağını düşündüğünden, hayatı, geçmişin tekrarı olarak nitelendirecektir. Öte yandan, 'arkaik' adam, 'modern insanın tarih yazabileceği konusunda giderek daha fazla şüphe duyduğuna' cevap verebilir: çünkü ya tarih kendini yazar ya da gitgide azalan sayıda insan tarafından yazılır. “Arkaik” adam der ki, eğer kendisi ve toplumu, tarihe hapsolmuşlarsa, nasıl evrimleşmişlerdir?
Kitabın yazım tarzı bilimseldir. Eliade, hem eski hem de 'modern' benzer kaynaklara referanslarla fikrini desteklemiş ve çeşitli kültürlerden örneklerle de güçlendirmiştir. Kitap eski olduğu için çeviriye çok takılmamak lazım, konu ilgi çekici olduğu için çeviri, yazım hataları vs. katlanılabilecek bir durum.
Keyifli okumalar.
Tarih Felsefesi 101 kitabı sayılabilecek nitelikte bir kitap. "Ebedi dönüş", Mircea Eliade tarafından, dini davranışları yorumlamak için ortaya atılmış bir fikirdir; yani, davranışlarla ifade edilen bir inançtır (bazen dolaylı, ancak çoğu zaman açıkça): Kişinin, efsanelerde anlatılan olayların gerçekleştiği zaman olan "mitik çağ" ile ya 'modernleşebileceği' ya da ona 'dönebileceği' inancı.
Eliade kitabında, 'arkaik' insanın tarihdışı bağlamında var olduğuna işaret ettiği bir tür tarih felsefesine giriyor: tarih, bizim anlayışımızın aksine geçmiş değil günümüzdür, sadece geçmiş olay ve arketiplerin taklidinden ibarettir, tekerrürdür.
Bu kitabı okurken, bu ilkenin, her insanın en derin çekirdeğinde bile var olup olmadığını ve “modern” her şeyin kaçınılmaz bir şekilde bu kadar ucuz, basit, anlamsız ve hatta aldatıcı görünmesinin nedeni olup olmadığını merak etmeden duramadım.
Kitap, kimin daha özgür olduğunu tartıştıkları 'arkaik' ve 'modern' insan arasındaki hayali bir diyalog ile son bulur. Modern insan, insanın tarihi kendi başına yaratamayacağını düşündüğünden, hayatı, geçmişin tekrarı olarak nitelendirecektir. Öte yandan, 'arkaik' adam, 'modern insanın tarih yazabileceği konusunda giderek daha fazla şüphe duyduğuna' cevap verebilir: çünkü ya tarih kendini yazar ya da gitgide azalan sayıda insan tarafından yazılır. “Arkaik” adam der ki, eğer kendisi ve toplumu, tarihe hapsolmuşlarsa, nasıl evrimleşmişlerdir?
Kitabın yazım tarzı bilimseldir. Eliade, hem eski hem de 'modern' benzer kaynaklara referanslarla fikrini desteklemiş ve çeşitli kültürlerden örneklerle de güçlendirmiştir. Kitap eski olduğu için çeviriye çok takılmamak lazım, konu ilgi çekici olduğu için çeviri, yazım hataları vs. katlanılabilecek bir durum.
Keyifli okumalar.
mlindner's review against another edition
4.0
See original review here: http://marklindner.info/blog/2012/01/28/eliade-the-myth-of-the-eternal-return/
This is the 5th book that I have read for My Two-Thirds Book Challenge.
I stated at the end of my review of Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces that I hoped that this might be a good follow-up book to Campbell and I have to say that I think it was. It is certainly a different project than Campbell’s but it dovetails nicely.
Contents:
Introduction to the 2005 Edition by Jonathan Z. Smith
Foreword
Preface
Chap. 1: Archetypes and Repetition
§ The Problem
§ Celestial Archetypes of Territories, Temples, and Cities
§ The Symbolism of the Center
§ Repetition of the Cosmogony
§ Divine Models of Rituals
§ Archetypes of Profane Activities
§ Myths and History
Chap. 2: The Regeneration of Time
§ Year, New Year, Cosmogony
§ Periodicity of the Creation
§ Continuous Regeneration of Time
Chap. 3: Misfortune and History
§ Normality of Suffering
§ History Regarded as Theophany
§ Cosmic Cycles and History
§ Destiny and History
Ch. 4: The Terror of History
§ Survival of the Myth of Eternal Return
§ The Difficulties of Historicism
§ Freedom and History
§ Despair or Faith
Bibliography
Index
This is a fairly complicated book but I found it in no way tiresome to read, as I often did Campbell. Is it more “true” than Campbell? I don’t think we can ever know that but most of it is certainly plausible. My biggest concern, as it is in many areas, is can we really get into the head of archaic man? So many things were so different then than how they are, or have been for a good while, for any of us that can read (or could have written) this book.
The gist is a comparison of how primitive or archaic humans viewed history versus how historical man views history. For archaic human, Eliade claims, everything that mattered—that had meaning—was a repeat of an archetype of some previous event or action in ‘primordial’ time, and that these things were endlessly repeated as the world was, in fact, repeatedly re-created anew.
“The essential theme of my investigation bears on the image of himself formed by the man of the archaic societies and on the place he assumes in the Cosmos. The chief difference between the man of the archaic and traditional societies and the man of the modern societies with their strong imprint of Judaeo-Christianity lies in the fact that the former feels himself indissolubly connected with the Cosmos, whereas the latter insists that he is connected only with History. …” xxvii-xxviii
“The reader will remember that they [traditional civilizations] defended themselves against it [history], either by periodically abolishing it through repetition of the cosmogony and a periodic regeneration of time or by giving historical events a metahistorical meaning, a meaning that was not only consoling but was above all coherent, that is, capable of being fitted into a well-consolidated system in which the cosmos and man’s existence had each its raison d’être.” 142
The Hebrews, with their faith in Yahweh and their interpretation of events being a manifestation of His will, gave us ‘history.’ This view evolves over time, eventually leading to historicism.
“Thus, for the first time, the [Hebrew] prophets placed a value on history, succeeded in transcending the traditional vision of the cycle (the conception that ensure all things will be repeated forever), and discovered a one-way time. This discovery was not to be immediately and fully accepted by the consciousness of the entire Jewish people, and the ancient conceptions were still long to survive.” 104
“It may, then, be said with truth that the Hebrews were the first to discover the meaning of history as the epiphany of God, and this conception, as we should expect, was taken up and amplified by Christianity.
We may even ask ourselves if monotheism, based upon the direct and personal revelation of the divinity, does not necessarily entail the “salvation” of time, its value within the frame of history.” 104
“From the seventeenth century on, linearism and the progressivistic conception of history assert themselves more and more, inaugurating faith in an infinite progress, a faith already proclaimed by Leibniz, predominant in the century of “enlightenment,” and popularized in the nineteenth century by the triumph of the ideas of the evolutionists. We must wait until our own century to see the beginnings of certain new reactions against this historical linearism and a certain revival of interest in the theory of cycles; …” 145-46
The problem for modern man is one of existentialism, although that term is never used. It is, though, described in the text in places.
“For our purpose, only one question concerns us: How can the “terror of history” be tolerated from the viewpoint of historicism? Justification of a historical event by the simple fact that it is a historical event, in other words, by the simple fact that it “happened that way,” will not go far toward freeing humanity from the terror that the event inspires.” 150
What is interesting, and Eliade points towards it even in 1949, is that there is a nostalgia, a return even, towards the archaic view of history.
“Some pages earlier, we noted various recent orientations that tend to reconfer value upon the myth of cyclical periodicity, even the myth of eternal return. … …, it is worth noting that the work of two of the most significant writers of our day–T. S. Eliot and James Joyce–is saturated with nostalgia for the myth of eternal repetition and, in the last analysis, for the abolition of time.” 153
I think this kind of thinking is also reflected in the current interest in the Mayan calendar and 2012, in various forms of magical thinking like that involved in the Singularity, and other views and ideas floating around in early 21st-century consumer culture. I would really love to have Eliade’s take on this.
Eliade’s analysis leads him to claim that Christianity is the answer modern man has arrived at to combat the “terror of history.”
“But we are able to observe here and now that such a position [historicist] affords a shelter from the terror of history only insofar as it postulates the existence at least of the Universal Spirit. What consolation should we find in knowing that the sufferings of millions of men have made possible the revelation of a limitary situation of the human condition if, beyond that limitary situation, there should be only nothingness?” 159-60
“In this respect, Christianity incontestibly proves to be the religion of “fallen man”: and this to the extent which modern man is irremediably identified with history and progress, and to which history and progress are a fall, both implying the final abandonment of the paradise of archetypes and repetition.” 162
Personally, this leaves me unsatisfied. I am not sure that this is simply an objective (or as objective as possible) analysis or whether it is the answer Eliade wanted. Throughout most of the book, and even in the final clause above [the final sentence of the book], he seems to be more positively drawn towards the archaic human view than that of the modern, historical human.
I wonder whether the existential crisis is not simply overstated here, as it is in many places. Or perhaps it was more of a crisis when this book was written; it was certainly more of a ‘movement’ then than now. Perhaps 21st-century humans, at least those of us living our lives in our blogs and on twitter and so on, are simply too busy to feel the ‘crisis’ as deeply.
Something from the foreword which I fully agree would be a good thing:
“Our chief intent has been to set forth certain governing lines of force in the speculative field of archaic societies. It seemed to us that a simple presentation of this field would not be without interest, especially for the philosopher accustomed to finding his problems and the mean of solving them in the texts of classic philosophy or in the spiritual history of the West. With us, it is an old conviction that Western philosophy is dangerously close to “provincializing” itself … by its obstinate refusal to recognize any “situations” except those of the man of the historical civilizations, in defiance of the experience of “primitive” man, of man as a member of the traditional societies. … Better yet: that the cardinal problems of metaphysics could be renewed through a knowledge of archaic ontology.” xxiv
There are some interesting comments in a couple of places regarding the views of the elites (particularly the educated/intellectual elite) vs. the common person that I found intriguing, and that speak to related issues of today.
I imagine that I will revisit this work in the future. I am not entirely sure I understood everything Eliade claims; in fact, I know I didn’t. Another read might not fully solve that issue but it would help immensely I imagine. And I do think some interesting work on current culture could be done with the framework he has outlined here.
Recommended.
This is the 5th book that I have read for My Two-Thirds Book Challenge.
I stated at the end of my review of Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces that I hoped that this might be a good follow-up book to Campbell and I have to say that I think it was. It is certainly a different project than Campbell’s but it dovetails nicely.
Contents:
Introduction to the 2005 Edition by Jonathan Z. Smith
Foreword
Preface
Chap. 1: Archetypes and Repetition
§ The Problem
§ Celestial Archetypes of Territories, Temples, and Cities
§ The Symbolism of the Center
§ Repetition of the Cosmogony
§ Divine Models of Rituals
§ Archetypes of Profane Activities
§ Myths and History
Chap. 2: The Regeneration of Time
§ Year, New Year, Cosmogony
§ Periodicity of the Creation
§ Continuous Regeneration of Time
Chap. 3: Misfortune and History
§ Normality of Suffering
§ History Regarded as Theophany
§ Cosmic Cycles and History
§ Destiny and History
Ch. 4: The Terror of History
§ Survival of the Myth of Eternal Return
§ The Difficulties of Historicism
§ Freedom and History
§ Despair or Faith
Bibliography
Index
This is a fairly complicated book but I found it in no way tiresome to read, as I often did Campbell. Is it more “true” than Campbell? I don’t think we can ever know that but most of it is certainly plausible. My biggest concern, as it is in many areas, is can we really get into the head of archaic man? So many things were so different then than how they are, or have been for a good while, for any of us that can read (or could have written) this book.
The gist is a comparison of how primitive or archaic humans viewed history versus how historical man views history. For archaic human, Eliade claims, everything that mattered—that had meaning—was a repeat of an archetype of some previous event or action in ‘primordial’ time, and that these things were endlessly repeated as the world was, in fact, repeatedly re-created anew.
“The essential theme of my investigation bears on the image of himself formed by the man of the archaic societies and on the place he assumes in the Cosmos. The chief difference between the man of the archaic and traditional societies and the man of the modern societies with their strong imprint of Judaeo-Christianity lies in the fact that the former feels himself indissolubly connected with the Cosmos, whereas the latter insists that he is connected only with History. …” xxvii-xxviii
“The reader will remember that they [traditional civilizations] defended themselves against it [history], either by periodically abolishing it through repetition of the cosmogony and a periodic regeneration of time or by giving historical events a metahistorical meaning, a meaning that was not only consoling but was above all coherent, that is, capable of being fitted into a well-consolidated system in which the cosmos and man’s existence had each its raison d’être.” 142
The Hebrews, with their faith in Yahweh and their interpretation of events being a manifestation of His will, gave us ‘history.’ This view evolves over time, eventually leading to historicism.
“Thus, for the first time, the [Hebrew] prophets placed a value on history, succeeded in transcending the traditional vision of the cycle (the conception that ensure all things will be repeated forever), and discovered a one-way time. This discovery was not to be immediately and fully accepted by the consciousness of the entire Jewish people, and the ancient conceptions were still long to survive.” 104
“It may, then, be said with truth that the Hebrews were the first to discover the meaning of history as the epiphany of God, and this conception, as we should expect, was taken up and amplified by Christianity.
We may even ask ourselves if monotheism, based upon the direct and personal revelation of the divinity, does not necessarily entail the “salvation” of time, its value within the frame of history.” 104
“From the seventeenth century on, linearism and the progressivistic conception of history assert themselves more and more, inaugurating faith in an infinite progress, a faith already proclaimed by Leibniz, predominant in the century of “enlightenment,” and popularized in the nineteenth century by the triumph of the ideas of the evolutionists. We must wait until our own century to see the beginnings of certain new reactions against this historical linearism and a certain revival of interest in the theory of cycles; …” 145-46
The problem for modern man is one of existentialism, although that term is never used. It is, though, described in the text in places.
“For our purpose, only one question concerns us: How can the “terror of history” be tolerated from the viewpoint of historicism? Justification of a historical event by the simple fact that it is a historical event, in other words, by the simple fact that it “happened that way,” will not go far toward freeing humanity from the terror that the event inspires.” 150
What is interesting, and Eliade points towards it even in 1949, is that there is a nostalgia, a return even, towards the archaic view of history.
“Some pages earlier, we noted various recent orientations that tend to reconfer value upon the myth of cyclical periodicity, even the myth of eternal return. … …, it is worth noting that the work of two of the most significant writers of our day–T. S. Eliot and James Joyce–is saturated with nostalgia for the myth of eternal repetition and, in the last analysis, for the abolition of time.” 153
I think this kind of thinking is also reflected in the current interest in the Mayan calendar and 2012, in various forms of magical thinking like that involved in the Singularity, and other views and ideas floating around in early 21st-century consumer culture. I would really love to have Eliade’s take on this.
Eliade’s analysis leads him to claim that Christianity is the answer modern man has arrived at to combat the “terror of history.”
“But we are able to observe here and now that such a position [historicist] affords a shelter from the terror of history only insofar as it postulates the existence at least of the Universal Spirit. What consolation should we find in knowing that the sufferings of millions of men have made possible the revelation of a limitary situation of the human condition if, beyond that limitary situation, there should be only nothingness?” 159-60
“In this respect, Christianity incontestibly proves to be the religion of “fallen man”: and this to the extent which modern man is irremediably identified with history and progress, and to which history and progress are a fall, both implying the final abandonment of the paradise of archetypes and repetition.” 162
Personally, this leaves me unsatisfied. I am not sure that this is simply an objective (or as objective as possible) analysis or whether it is the answer Eliade wanted. Throughout most of the book, and even in the final clause above [the final sentence of the book], he seems to be more positively drawn towards the archaic human view than that of the modern, historical human.
I wonder whether the existential crisis is not simply overstated here, as it is in many places. Or perhaps it was more of a crisis when this book was written; it was certainly more of a ‘movement’ then than now. Perhaps 21st-century humans, at least those of us living our lives in our blogs and on twitter and so on, are simply too busy to feel the ‘crisis’ as deeply.
Something from the foreword which I fully agree would be a good thing:
“Our chief intent has been to set forth certain governing lines of force in the speculative field of archaic societies. It seemed to us that a simple presentation of this field would not be without interest, especially for the philosopher accustomed to finding his problems and the mean of solving them in the texts of classic philosophy or in the spiritual history of the West. With us, it is an old conviction that Western philosophy is dangerously close to “provincializing” itself … by its obstinate refusal to recognize any “situations” except those of the man of the historical civilizations, in defiance of the experience of “primitive” man, of man as a member of the traditional societies. … Better yet: that the cardinal problems of metaphysics could be renewed through a knowledge of archaic ontology.” xxiv
There are some interesting comments in a couple of places regarding the views of the elites (particularly the educated/intellectual elite) vs. the common person that I found intriguing, and that speak to related issues of today.
I imagine that I will revisit this work in the future. I am not entirely sure I understood everything Eliade claims; in fact, I know I didn’t. Another read might not fully solve that issue but it would help immensely I imagine. And I do think some interesting work on current culture could be done with the framework he has outlined here.
Recommended.
candelarius's review against another edition
5.0
Eliade's thesis is easy enough to sum up -- events in an "archaic person's" life only acquired meaning inasmuch as they emulate an archetypal example performed in mythical time by gods, heroes, whatever. Rituals, naturally, are incredibly important -- given how closely they are modeled after mythical precedenkt, they transport the practitioner to this time before time and imbue them with whatever power was present then. This, of course, leads to a primitive struggle against history; a fixed, linear, unidirectional flow of time can only serve to disrupt the "eternal return" -- the cylical rejuvenation that mythical emulation grants. To back all this up, Eliade takes on with a truly break-neck pace on a survey through all sorts of ancient cultures -- Germanic, Japanese, Sumerian, Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Native American, Babylonian, Australian Aboriginal, &c. He really doesn't run out of examples at any point.
My hesitancy, however, comes in that I still don't know how universal this idea can be. I have read in places (though honestly will probably not follow up on it too much) that this model of valorization simply doesn't apply in all cases (though, then again, what does?) making this more a study of specific myths in specific cultures rather than a description of a premodern psychology. My other two specific issues are with his treatment on the normalization of suffering and the monotheistic creation of history.
I won't go too far into it (just read the book! it's not that long) but I think his claim of a near-universal "understanding" of suffering and its origin is a bit...bold. He spends like half a sentence making a concession regarding the Lokayata tradition but I would like to see a deeper analysis of the many, many more materialist schools of thought in the ancient world.
He also makes a contrast between (many) "polytheistic" (honestly that's almost too narrow -- non-monotheistic is better) beliefs systems and monotheism, specifically ancient Judaism -- in that in the former, gods, heroes, &c. set their example in a mythical time while God actively intervenes in the present day. Thus, for the former, the profane world can only ever be valorized by that emulation of the distant past -- for a monotheist, however, a sense of theophany can be present in everyday life -- so, there's no fear of "history" separating you from the divine. I'm just not so sure I buy the division. Maybe Romans are a bit too "modern" for his analysis but they absolutely believed in their gods' intervention not just in their daily lives but in history on a grand scale, and even with the placement of the divine within profane time (Eliade makes this point regarding ancient Hebrews -- that Moses, at a definite time, at a definite place, received the Ten Commandments from God, making this a divine action in profane time -- but isn't the same true of Numa Pompilius and Egeria?).
This gets somewhat cleared up with his introduction of how the concept of "faith" allows the "historical person" to deal with the terror of history. ...speaking OF...!! The final chapter of this book, "the Terror of History," is maybe the most thought-provoking and inspired Teofilo Ruiz's wonderful monograph of the same title ([b:The Terror Of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization|10823399|The Terror Of History On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization|Teofilo F. Ruiz|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328016632s/10823399.jpg|15737166]). I would actually suggest reading this book -- at least this chapter -- before delving into Ruiz's work just to know precisely what he's responding to.
Regardless of these aforementioned issues, the book really is a stunning display of his research and will give a deep insight into archaic systems of myth and belief. I strongly recommend it to anyone with any interest in mythology or historical consciousness.
My hesitancy, however, comes in that I still don't know how universal this idea can be. I have read in places (though honestly will probably not follow up on it too much) that this model of valorization simply doesn't apply in all cases (though, then again, what does?) making this more a study of specific myths in specific cultures rather than a description of a premodern psychology. My other two specific issues are with his treatment on the normalization of suffering and the monotheistic creation of history.
I won't go too far into it (just read the book! it's not that long) but I think his claim of a near-universal "understanding" of suffering and its origin is a bit...bold. He spends like half a sentence making a concession regarding the Lokayata tradition but I would like to see a deeper analysis of the many, many more materialist schools of thought in the ancient world.
He also makes a contrast between (many) "polytheistic" (honestly that's almost too narrow -- non-monotheistic is better) beliefs systems and monotheism, specifically ancient Judaism -- in that in the former, gods, heroes, &c. set their example in a mythical time while God actively intervenes in the present day. Thus, for the former, the profane world can only ever be valorized by that emulation of the distant past -- for a monotheist, however, a sense of theophany can be present in everyday life -- so, there's no fear of "history" separating you from the divine. I'm just not so sure I buy the division. Maybe Romans are a bit too "modern" for his analysis but they absolutely believed in their gods' intervention not just in their daily lives but in history on a grand scale, and even with the placement of the divine within profane time (Eliade makes this point regarding ancient Hebrews -- that Moses, at a definite time, at a definite place, received the Ten Commandments from God, making this a divine action in profane time -- but isn't the same true of Numa Pompilius and Egeria?).
This gets somewhat cleared up with his introduction of how the concept of "faith" allows the "historical person" to deal with the terror of history. ...speaking OF...!! The final chapter of this book, "the Terror of History," is maybe the most thought-provoking and inspired Teofilo Ruiz's wonderful monograph of the same title ([b:The Terror Of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization|10823399|The Terror Of History On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization|Teofilo F. Ruiz|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328016632s/10823399.jpg|15737166]). I would actually suggest reading this book -- at least this chapter -- before delving into Ruiz's work just to know precisely what he's responding to.
Regardless of these aforementioned issues, the book really is a stunning display of his research and will give a deep insight into archaic systems of myth and belief. I strongly recommend it to anyone with any interest in mythology or historical consciousness.