James Baquet

    Perhaps because he never “did television,” the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) is not quite the household name he should be. However, when it comes to the history of religions, perhaps no one has conceived and explained more paradigms than he.

    Eliade was born in Bucharest, where he lived until his late teens. His passions included the study of science — particularly etymology — folklore, religion, philosophy, literature, and languages. He was also physically active, pursuing mountain climbing and sailing.

    He was an avid reader. Two books that made major impacts on him were the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” the oldest known epic; and Sir James George Frazer’s “The Golden Bough,” a monumental study of magic, mythology, and religious practices around the world. From this latter, Eliade was exposed to Frazer’s theory that the beliefs of humans had passed through three stages: primitive magic, which evolved into religion, and finally modern science.

    Following numerous moves between countries, Eliade ultimately settled in the United States in 1956, where he became a professor at the University of Chicago.

    Let us turn to some of the ideas Eliade introduced to the study of religions. One of these is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. How is it, he pondered, that a tree can become a “sacred tree,” or a mountain a “holy mountain?” What is the process by which ordinary things (or times) become “sacralized?”

    This leads to his thoughts on sacred time, especially as it connects with origin myths. Many cultures have a new year celebration which is often connected to a story (think of the Chinese story about the monster “Nian” and its fear of loud noises and the color red). This, in turn, is connected to the “myth of the eternal return,” a sort of “restarting the clock” in this world, based on events in “that world.”

    Other concepts he brought to light were the “axis mundi” (the so-called “symbolism of the center,” including the “world tree”), and his study of shamanism, a word which he introduced to Western languages.

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. models or frameworks of thought

    2. made sacred

    3. belief in the power of a shaman, a person who interacts with spirits

    4. holy, not ordinary

    5. ordinary, everyday

    6. from the earliest stage of social development

    7. things that someone loves

    8. long poem about a hero

    9. difference