Rating: 
Summary: Ability to Recreate verses Historical Existentialism
Review: .
I'm in awe over this book! It's a larger lens, a higher mountain to see religious and historical thought. Really, I am amazed at this book. 50 years after it is written and I've read hundreds of books and here I am dumb founded. Read some of the other amazon.com reviews here (some are excellent) and now I am adding to them.Eliade relates two main types of persons. The archaic man and the modern. The archaic models his life on archetypes, similiar to Plato's "world of ideas," forsaking history in favor of such. He repeatedly and continually destroys all history and recreates himself in a new beginning. He does this by entering a timeless realm Eliade calls the illo tempore, a timeless and numinous death and rebirth, which he bases on cyclic events of some type. The modern man negates all of this in favor of historicity. He measures all history and time, or the profane time, and bases his entire life on the meaning of such in present existence and all future decision making. However, without the archaic man's non-historical regenerative abilities to recreate himself in such timelessness, or in the sacred, in imitation of archetypes, the modern historical man faces extreme existential despair. But what saves the modern man from suicide and utter meaninglessness in relativism and nihilism; he joins to his historical self, either religious faith, cyclic theories, mysticism, science and philosophy. Hegel suggests history (and all the evil in history) is never repeated and necessary for the evolution to higher ends. Only persons like Belinsky or Dostoeyski have resisted but weakly in that. Marx had made a science of history as the results of the class struggle, which ultimately fails and leaves us in our existential relativity. So remedies are created to coincide with historical measurement, as in Nietzsche's Eternal Return,although cyclic in nature is not the Eternal Return of the Archaic man who regenerations a new beginning, but rather that of the Greek Heraclitus and Pythagorean thoughts, are the cyclic meanings needed to live a life of measured time and history apart from the archaic regenerative man of archetype models and rebirth into new beginnings. The same holds true for Oswald Spenglers biological conception of history and Heidegger's idea of historicity transcending all are what modern man must attach to his linear historical measurement. While monotheism, the first to measure history and time encounters the timelessness of the illo tempore in the beginning of creation and in the "end" of the world or in Christianity in the second coming of the messiah. Unlike the archaic man who enters the new creation each and every time he recreates both himself and his world. Eliade suggests that perhaps mankind will one day return to the archaic man of regeneration in repetition of rituals and meaning to cease measuring this time and enter in the timelessness, letting go of history and entering in the illo tempore. (Archetype Non-Historical Regeneration Man)
The wind blows - but - gets continually reborn; or,
(Historical Man with Religious Faith)
Cling to your dusty mirror and hold God's hand.
(Historical Man without Religious Faith)
Or the mirror without dust would destroy the world. And to sum it up, Archaic man had no history, repeated archetype models, destroying his past (all history) and recreating the beginning of time each year in a mystical, timeless moment in the illo tempore, all history erased. While modern man relies on history and profane time and gains either science, philosophy or religious faith to prevent him from dying in existential despair. Now I'm reading this great book entitled, When Science Meets Religion, by Ian G. Barbour and reading of those with religious faith who conform the uncertainties of quantum physics with a God who controls such acausual events. Seeing this through Eliade's lens, I see this as an historical man's attempt to join religious faith to his history and science in order to prevent him from existential despair in the terror of history. For the archaic man none of this is needed, as he will erase all history, re-creating the beginning of time reborn in the timeless moment of illo tempore, not of some future time but of the present. And while the modern man has history and faith, he also forms minority governments to control, organized and maintains his linear history. The majority are followers, freedom is seriously limited. The archaic man has complete freedom as each time cycle or year, to erase all history, to enter in the timeless moment of the archetype of illo tempore and re-create himself and his world. I can't say enough for this book, this only a summary of a higher mountain to see humanity.
Rating: 
Summary: The classic exposition of the mythic study of Religion.
Review: Eliade attempts to show that "archaic man" lives in a world that perpetually recreates the building and maintenance of a cosmos. Using many examples from anthropological work and his own textual work in Indian religion and philosophy, he tries to show that all societies practice religion in a way such that each action gains meaning only be identifying with a cultural archetype. Thus, objects have no "meaning" in and of themselves, but only insofar as they participate in a mythic role. While some might argue against drawing likenesses between "archaic" religions and "modern" ones, Eliade does just that, arguing that the three modern monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, retain, at the least, vestiges of this ongoing mythic repetition.
The most important issue for Eliade is "history." It is so important, that he states that the central problem of "man" is to attempt to abolish history. The word "abolish" is very important. It helps signify that this process is for Eliade, an attempt to banish the withering, terrorizing effect of passing through the "meaninglessness" of ordinary or profane time. Eliade states that for "primitive" societies, time is not allowed to become history. Other, "modern" societies have felt the need to record temporal occurrences, thus making them irreversible. Instead of abolishing this need to return to a mythic beginning, this has made the need grow deeper. Thus the role for religion in the modern world is to enable "man" to become a "primitive" again. Not in a sense of rationally dysfunctional, but in the sense of living eternally in the present, removed from the relentless onslaught of "history." Perhaps Eliade is simply describing a dualism, where he could chide "archaic" man for not living up to the "truth" of reality. But this is actually far from Eliade's project. In describing a situation where a folklorist had the attempted to correct a mythical account with a historically factual one, Eliade sides with those who refuse to accept the historical account-he argues "...was not the myth truer by the fact that it made the real story yield a deeper and richer meaning, reaching a tragic destiny." Thus we see that Eliade is willing to let truth become divorced from factuality. In his account of evil among archaic man, Eliade argues that evil is tolerable because it is at least never absurd, or meaningless. That is, evil is never without the ability to be fitted into a cosmic scheme that retains cultural purpose. Occurrences, good or bad, reveal a purpose to the world. Even Marxism, says Eliade, posits a meaning to history, expressing it in terms of class struggle and dialectical materialism. While this schema of "history" does possess considerable explanatory power, the reduction of all religion to the irruption of the sacred through the individual and culture masks the very real human elements that enforce and maintain religion and religious prescriptions as part of culture. The positing of a "meaning" by a culture (or subculture) also carries with it the possibility (and often the power) to enforce a specific mode of political, economic, and social discourse. If we only look at the lens of myth in this manner, we miss being able to see how myth contributes to political, gender, racial and economic oppression. "Religion" then becomes a legitimating factor in the commitment of atrocities we might otherwise criticize or punish. For example, are the recent tragedies in the USA any more legitimate because they were committed by fanatics in the name of "Islam" ? Of course not. For a similar, yet quite different perspective, read Friedrich Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."
Rating: 
Summary: Contents are spectacular, translation is wanting
Review: I cannot add to any of the other excellent synopses of the contents of this seminal work. The ideas are fascinating and the perspective unique. The concepts under discussion are sophisticated, but elegant, and the work is certainly written for thinking persons who are given to pondering unanswerables. Here is where I diverge from the other readers' sparkling reviews: this is the most laborious, bombastic, convoluted text, more given to flamboyant language structure--and leaving content to languish under the suffocation of verbiage--than any book I have ever read. Be prepared for the most archaic of words, the least succinct of summations, and the most roundabout explanations of what are already intricate interrelationships in a complex system. Although I have never seen, nor could read, the original text, the translators do no favors for the reader, and, I fear, a great disservice to Mr. Eliade's intent in the interest of being faithful to the original. I hope that one day a more accessible translation will be available.
Rating:
Summary: an interesting and thought-provoking piece of scholarship
Review: I was inspired by the icredible insight and interesting acedemic thought in this book -- it's hard to beleive that it was written over fourty years ago. The struggle with "the terror of history" and the horror of linear time is something that many of us still struggle with today. As a student of literature, I found this book particularly helpful in studying the moderns, such as T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, who, as Eliade mentions, both express a longing to return to the cyclical. As a mythology-lover I found that this book gave me a new perspective on the study of myth -- which I feel is still important if we are to understand the primitive depths of our own minds.
Rating:
Summary: an interesting and thought-provoking piece of scholarship
Review: I was inspired by the icredible insight and interesting acedemic thought in this book -- it's hard to beleive that it was written over fourty years ago. The struggle with "the terror of history" and the horror of linear time is something that many of us still struggle with today. As a student of literature, I found this book particularly helpful in studying the moderns, such as T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, who, as Eliade mentions, both express a longing to return to the cyclical. As a mythology-lover I found that this book gave me a new perspective on the study of myth -- which I feel is still important if we are to understand the primitive depths of our own minds.
Rating:
Summary: In the Light of Mythology
Review: Mircea Eliade, in his internationally aclimed authority, does not need to be praised by a non specialist such as myself, but I still feel compelled to express my infinte debt to his work, of which "The Myth of the Eternal Return" was the introductory book. I am a college student of History, Philosophy, and Religion/Mythology. The area is not so promising as computers or medicine, but when one is in love, as I am with my area of interests, the desert becomes atractive, for one believes the Promised Land is on the other side. Eliade's work is so enlightening, accesible, and rich in information and poetry that my fear of entering in such a discredited area is erased as I read it. I hope the Myth of the Eternal Return will bring as much satisfaction to all who read it as it did to me, and that the Myth will also bring back, as its title promises, the old human interest in the ultimate problems of History, Philosophy, and Mythology. Read it and embrace the magic of our culture!
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Summary: post-modern archetypes
Review: Reading this book, I came to acknowledge in no modern scholar's analysis is there a possibility of divergence from "politically accepted" thought. To say a primitive (someone illiterate, living bounded into archetypes) has a theory of being is highly ridiculous, especially as the author himself acknowledges primitive man's disconfort in living outside the world of archetypes. To link an archetype (which is a form of instinct, with equivalents among other higher mammals) with philosophy, and even with the highest stance of the latter (ontology) is "mentally incorrect". These pitiful relativistic stances should be immediately ignored by a serious person. Otherwise, the influences of Jung's theories are always apparent. As always, ideas aren't bad in themselves, but their interpretation makes them a vehicle of relativism. According to Eliade, the archaic man lives in a world of archetypes and cyclical past, while for the "fallen" man of modern civilizations archetypes no longer exist and time is linear. This is obviously incorrect. His very idea that "we should respect other peoples cultures and not judge others as primitive" is an ALWAYS recurrent mindless ARCHETYPE of Post-Modern ages.
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Summary: post-modern archetypes
Review: Reading this book, I came to acknowledge in no modern scholar's analysis is there a possibility of divergence from "politically accepted" thought. To say a primitive (someone illiterate, living bounded into archetypes) has a theory of being is highly ridiculous, especially as the author himself acknowledges primitive man's disconfort in living outside the world of archetypes. To link an archetype (which is a form of instinct, with equivalents among other higher mammals) with philosophy, and even with the highest stance of the latter (ontology) is "mentally incorrect". These pitiful relativistic stances should be immediately ignored by a serious person. Otherwise, the influences of Jung's theories are always apparent. As always, ideas aren't bad in themselves, but their interpretation makes them a vehicle of relativism. According to Eliade, the archaic man lives in a world of archetypes and cyclical past, while for the "fallen" man of modern civilizations archetypes no longer exist and time is linear. This is obviously incorrect. His very idea that "we should respect other peoples cultures and not judge others as primitive" is an ALWAYS recurrent mindless ARCHETYPE of Post-Modern ages.
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Summary: Back to the Future
Review: Stated most simply, this is a study of two understandings of what it means to exist in time: the archaic or traditional and the modern. According to Eliade man has traditionally sought to conform his actions in time to primordial or mythic actions performed by gods or heroes in the beginning of time. By conforming his actions to those performed in the beginning or as Eliade puts it "in illo tempore", traditional man gives significance to those actions. He saves his life in time from the terrors of meaninglessness. Modern man on the other hand, has lost or rejected the archetypical world, the world of eternity. He sees nothing beyond the world of time. Modern man, according to Eliade is "historical man." Rather than seeking to transcend history, he "consciously and voluntarily creates history." He is "the man who is in so far as he makes himself, within history." This neat division is complicated however, by the Judaic prophets and Christianity. The God of the Jewish people is a personal God who intervenes in history and reveals his will through events. "Historical facts thus become 'situations' of man in respect to God, and as such they acquire a religious value that nothing had previously been able confer on them." The relationship with Yahweh brings into play a new element according to Eliade--faith. Christianity takes up the Jewish understanding and amplifies it. For Christianity the meaning of history "is unique because the Incarnation is a unique fact." Yet the archaic understanding of returning to the archetype is not altogether rejected by Christianity, but woven into its' new understanding of the uniqueness of historical events. This essay spans 162 pages that are divided into four large chapters with subheadings. The first chapter introduces the notions of the archetype, the return to the archetype, and their relation to sacred and profane time and place. The second chapter deals in depth with sacred time as a return to eternity. The third chapter examines suffering and the return to the archetype. The forth chapter looks at the modern understanding of history as it relates to the archaic. The book includes and extensive bibliography and an index. No summary can do justice to the depth, range, and brilliance of Eliade's essay. His knowledge of religions is damn near encyclopedic. He opens up so many interesting avenues for further thought that reading him is like having your brain fertilized. This book is must reading for anyone interested in religion, myth, philosophy of history, personalism, liturgy, or the idea of progress. If you are interested in traditionalist thinkers such as Rene Guenon or Ananda Coomaraswamy you will also want to check out Eliade.
Rating:
Summary: Still relevant
Review: This book was written in 1949. In the Preface he says that he considers it his most important work. I think not; I think he was being disingenuous or modest and was concerned about "history," the book having been written only 4 years after WWII. Nevertheless I think it is an important work of his and probably the best to read for an introduction to his thought, which is still surprisingly fresh after more than 50 years. This is a short book, only 162 pages. Each page, however, is packed with ideas and meaning. Eliade tries to show the differences between what he calls "archaic" or "traditional" man and the man of modern societies, primarily Western; those being that archaic man's behavior is governed by myths and archetypes and a cyclical, or cosmic, view of time, whereas modern man, for the most part, is governed only by himself and his own ability to "make" history, and therefore has a linear, or historical, view of time, a position that is without any "transcendant" models, myths, or archetypes. He also attempts to show the emptiness of various historicisic philosphies, such as those by Dilthey, Heidegger, Croce, Gasset. I think Eliade is still worth hearing, and in fact was one of the great minds and encyclopediasts of the 20th century. If the reader is interested in myth, the philosophy of history, phenomenology, ethnology, and theology, or even just the idea of transhistorical ideas or meaning in life, Eliade is a must read. "The Myth of the Eternal Return" is a good starting point for Eliade, followed by "The Sacred and The Profane."
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