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A review by amwsetford11
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask
3.0
This book is a great survey of world religions and a deep look into the phenomenology of belief. However, the way eliade analyzes religion is contrived—not tethered to biology. This, I know, is a trait of his field. Nevertheless, I think it would be helpful to address the underlying evolutionary mechanisms in play. Biology, like physics, is a foundational truth that one must accept when putting together hypothetical narratives. When dealing with humans, one must always remember our evolutionary origins and how present functions are driven by ancient mechanisms to further the propagation of lineage. This is foundational. Although culture may seem like a confounding variable at times, a critical analysis giving evolutionary reasoning it’s due will on average be more objectively accurate compared to misguided conspiracy about the meaning of abstract cultural phenomena. I am not saying this is what eliade does, and on some level I don’t think he is in pursuit of the truth, but would prefer to operate within a contrived domain to then map his findings on objective truth. He talks about religious ideas in a religious language and it’s product is equal to that which is truth but only after intense intellectual acrobatics.
Religion itself is a cultural mechanism, which in turn is a biological mechanism. That Eliade fails to maintain this truth is a bit disappointing. Reminding us of the evolutionary function, while not being reductive, is necessary to understand the necessity of religion for man to operate in the world, to tether him to meaning.
The greatest concept to take from this work is that profane, desacralized man, is still religious despite his attempts to remove himself from formal practice. After all, “[man] cannot utterly abolish his past, since he is himself the product of his past.” Although not explicit in eliade’s work, it is clear that our genetic makeup is such that our minds tend to religious orientation. To function in society and to make sense of ones position in relation to others and the cosmos, religious traditions are still used, manipulating our chemistries and aligning them with each other.
Religion itself is a cultural mechanism, which in turn is a biological mechanism. That Eliade fails to maintain this truth is a bit disappointing. Reminding us of the evolutionary function, while not being reductive, is necessary to understand the necessity of religion for man to operate in the world, to tether him to meaning.
The greatest concept to take from this work is that profane, desacralized man, is still religious despite his attempts to remove himself from formal practice. After all, “[man] cannot utterly abolish his past, since he is himself the product of his past.” Although not explicit in eliade’s work, it is clear that our genetic makeup is such that our minds tend to religious orientation. To function in society and to make sense of ones position in relation to others and the cosmos, religious traditions are still used, manipulating our chemistries and aligning them with each other.