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A review by pidgevorg
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask
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.