Talk:Mircea Eliade/Archive 3

Request for comment

Mirce Eliade is universally and exclusively known as a great scholar, one of the most influential religion scientists and an original and seminal writer and theorist. In the article, all these essential informations are massively obscured by an overflow of items dealing with Eliade’s ideological preferences. Basically, the entire article is being taken hostage by ideology. This is a matter of concern for many users: the present score of those having expressed unease on the talk page with the present WP:Undue weight of the article is seven against one. I am therefore proposing the creation of a separate article addressing the ideological orientations of Eliade. Such an entry will gather all the biographical, bibliographical and interpretational items dealing with this topic. The creation of a new entry out of the present section “Controversy….” represents an upgrading of this topic. Thus, readers interested in the ideological orientations of Eliade will find specific and focused information, while those interested in the scholar, thinker and writer will be able to follow their line of research. The present amalgamation of 70% ideology and 15% science is fallacious and untenable. Please give your comment on this proposal.--Timor Stultorum 11:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, let's hide everything under the rug. Oh: and I don't know where you come up with those percentages. Dahn 14:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Addition: I recently bumped into this wikipedia guideline. Dahn 20:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with creating a separate article. I personally think that having this information in the section called "Controversy..." is enough to allow both categories of people to focus on what they are interested in. Besides, there are other, more important issues to fix in this article. The biography is lacking further information both from his youth (his intense study methods, his radio lectures just to give two small examples) and from his later years (there isn't any mention of his death!). The scholar section only seems to cover a part of what he worked on. There is no section describing his fiction works! Bottom line, your insistences with moving/shrinking the Iron Guard related information are at the moment pointless and just a waste of everyone's time and nerves. Let's first have a more complete article, and then we can talk about what needs to be moved where, if that is still the case. — Daniel Mahu · talk · 15:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I support the idea of expanding the article with Eliade's many accomplishments, but at some point we need to discuss the long, rambling, and convoluted section that, when diagramed, reduces down to "some critics call Eliade an antisemite, but because some of his best friends were Jews, readers should not take this claim too seriously."--Cberlet 16:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It is long because I have gathered all possible evidence without commenting on them (except perhaps for the Sebastian quote, which I'm willing to rephrase). It was my goal to be as explicit about what Eliade thought on these matters, without attributing him things that were not his: in other words, if Eliade was an anti-Semite (which I personally do not dispute), he did a good job at hiding it. What that part does/should actually be diagramed to is: "most critics call Eliade an antisemite". I also fail to see where it is indicated that "most of his friends were Jewish" (or that it is relevant how many of them were); it is, however, a fact that Eliade was initially a philo-Semite (like many non-Nazi fascists), and that Sebastian, for some reason, had been accepted in Ionescu's group and was naively adopting its outlook on the world. If you want to look at it this way (and many have), it is a matter of scandal that Eliade chose between his Jewsih friend(s) and the Iron Guard, that he behaved in a disgusting manner towards Sebastian, and that he had the nerve to express his sadness that Sebastian died just before he (Eliade!) could tell him that there were no hard feelings betwen them ("I've just raped your wife, but I'm not upset, and neither should you be"). Dahn 17:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That was not at all his intent. There were hard feelings, and Eliade wanted to deal with them personally and get a chance to tell Sebastian he was sorry (and I believe he was). You should read his Memoirs before you call his sense of loss (in regard to Sebastian's passing) phoney. Sebastian himself, in his Journal, declares on numerous occasions that despite being shunned by Eliade, he still considered him a friend, and knew that "it wasn't the real Eliade" (paraphrasing) who was writing those nasty antisemitic diatribes and proclaiming the glory of the guard. (to a lesser extent, he felt the same about Nae Ionescu). Maybe Eliade didn't feel the same, but at the time when he was already in exile, and writing his Memoirs, he was genuinely saddened by Sebastian's death (such a stupid death too...). I don't see why you have to deny the man all traces of humanity. I mean for f's sake, he wasn't Satan incarnate. He made some pretty big mistakes yes, but he did have friends, and he did care about Sebastian (and Sebastian cared about him). Your rape remark is completely off-topic.--VMSolo67.71.159.94 15:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

VM, the topic here is differentiating between what can be listed in Eliade's actions and what can be deduced from them. I certainly agree that it was off-topic, but that was my precise meaning: I was pointing that listing Eliade's actions and noting that less than Cberlet's expects are incriminating for Eliade still does not mean that somebody is "hiding" Eliade's guilts/mistakes. Therefore, I did not indicate that one should entertain that opinion, but, for the purposes of what was discussed, I showed that the current text should not be read as either an apology or a castigation. Whether I do believe what I have theorized is ultimately irrelevant, and responding to it was truly off-topic, but, if you ask to know: no, I don't believe that he did that exactly, but I don't think that what he did was far from that. On a different level: even the harshest interpretation of what Eliade did would not indicate to me, nor serve to indicate to me that the man was Satan or that he had no traces of humanity. To me, it is rather indicative of precisely the trance of violent and modernist relativism that so many others fell into, right (Papini, d'Annunzio, Emil Nolde, Jünger etc etc) and left (Koestler, Picasso etc etc). In particular, it is also illustrative of the appeal of the collective mind to even the most individualist souls in Romanian culture (how many have talked about the frenzied and hypnotic immersion of Romanian intellectuals into extremism?). What I would rather say is that Eliade never did realize the harm he had advocated, and that his primordial interest has always been making himself look good. Were it not for the consequences his actions had, I would consider that his right and privilege. But, as I have said, all of this is nothing to the text we're discussing. Dahn 22:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

If it helps, I think the article is improving. :-) --Cberlet 20:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I think there still is in this article a problem of undue weight. The controversy section is twice as big as the scholar one. This is not OK. Note that I'm not contesting here the quality of the two sections, just their relative sizes. Dpotop 11:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, now, if you would kindly check the kilometers of talk above and in the archive, as well as the tags placed in the article, the solution is to expand the other sections accordingly. I was able to add things relevant to other sections; if others can add relevant stuff to other sections, you've got the way out of this problem. Nevertheless, the only "solution" proposed here was moving or removing other content. If you are also proposing the latter, I'm afraid I for one am not at all interested. Dahn 12:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Separate article for the critical works

Someone has separated the scholar works into a separate article. At the same time, Dahn insists on preserving the critical works (one screen) in this article. To me, this seems to be unfair. Either you keep both scholar (i.e. positive side) and critics here, or put them both in separate articles. I will revert you last change, which I consider unfair, and POV. Dpotop 19:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I can sympathize with your complaint, but the problem is that the works by Eliade are so many making this article very long. May be we could list his most important scholarly works and fiction works here and refer the reader for more information to a long bibliography. I cannot do this because I do not what the main works by Eliade are.

E.g. {{main|bibliography of Mircea Eliade}} which yields :

Main article: bibliography of Mircea Eliade

.

Andries 19:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Including his most important works and his most important critics may be a good solution. But including all works on Eliade and not all works by Eliade is not OK. Two arguments:

1. Few wikipedians know how to search on wikipedia.
2. You should first include the real thing and only then comments about it.

BTW, your argument works against you, too, because searching for "critical work on ME" gives exactly the list of critical works. :)

PS: I added an indent to your edit. I hope it's ok. Dpotop 19:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I saw your last edits. How do you like the current structure? You will have to add here the main works about Eliade. Dpotop 20:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the current structure is fine, though I have my doubts about the question whether so many fiction works by Eliade should be listed here. I know Eliade as a famous scholar, not as a famous writer of fiction. But again, my knowledge about Eliade is very limited. Andries 20:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Dpotop, let me be very clear about this, "critical works" does not mean, as you understood it based on your patchy knowledge of English, "works critical of Mircea Eliade". They mean works of LITERARY CRITICISM, so the question of POV that you raise is MOOT (there is no "positive side" or "negative side"). The very notion that you think someone could comply a list based on which works are positive and which are not is infuriating, because it implies that you would also consider such a criteria acceptable. In fact, most of those works aren't even "critical" of Eliade (Simion's is basically a homage). Please understand, because this is getting ridiculous. Dahn 20:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I know very well what "critical works" means in English. However, I don't see why you need "critical", when "works about" is semanticslly complete. I also don't see why you reverted the edits of Andries, too (not only mine). Dpotop 20:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Ask the native English speaker who created the section why he chose the wording. 2. "Works about Mircea Eliade" is vague, and surely not limited to "works of professional criticism", which is what was intended. Dahn 20:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Those books are not only criticism of his works. They also criticise (unfavourably) Eliade's political stances. We are talking here about a person that has 2 faces: one scholar, and the other political. While the previous wording was ok for the scholar, the books listed there (e.g. the one by Turcanu) comment on both aspects. Hence, using the scholar meaning of "criticism" is not OK. And, of course, I intended the title to be broader than the one you chose. Dpotop 21:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? Name the book that does not fit into the "criticism of his work" criteria. Name it. Now, even if you had an objection towards Ţurcanu being included in that list, that could be debated on its own, and the objection would still not explain your creation of a fork, nor your original explanation of the term "criticism". Dahn 21:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Turcanu's book does not entirely fit inside "criticism of Eliade's work" because it also comments on the political view of the young Eliade. Moreover, Turcanu takes great care to identify both the scholar and the political incarnations of Eliade, and explain how they are different, yet sometimes intertwined. Dpotop 21:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

And therein is the logical fallacy: False dilemma. If you argue that, for some reason, one of the books is not entirely of criticism, it still does not mean that it is not largely of criticism (as opposed to Ornea's book, which is not a critical study of Eliade's oevre, but solely a clear-cut investigation into his and others' political activities). Key terms: entirely, largely, solely. Might I add that the said book also falls under the main and neutral definition to be found in the article on critic ("reasoned judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation"), that it is about Eliade, and that it is written by a researcher, as well as investigating his literature (scientific and fantasy). Since the main purpose of that list, per what was agreed when I proposed removing it altogether, and per wikipdia guidelines on sources that were not [yet] cited, is to provide readers with where they can find extra information about the topic of this article, this most likely belongs here.

You also obstinately continue to refuse explaining why you created a fork for Bibliography of Mircea Eliade in this article, and fail to explain why your arguments about the topic have changed three times by now (beginning with the whimsical addition you made to Critical works about Mircea Eliade - "The following works are perceived as critical on Mircea Eliade", which shows precisely that you had no clue). Dahn 23:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I would not classify the book by Daniel Pals as criticism. Yes, it critically asseses his theory (and other theories), but it is not harsh criticism. Andries 21:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Andries, the meaning of the term "criticsm" is strictly in reference to "literary criticism", ie: to scholarly material on Eliade's contribution to literature and science. I have just indicated that most of those books are actually praises of Eliade. A list of works that express criticism of Eliade has not been, cannot be, and should not be created. Dahn 21:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of this meaning of the term criticism is ambiguous and should be avoided unless explicitly explained. Andries 21:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Then change it to something you consider explicit, unless you want to ask the person who introduced the term why he or she chose to do so. In any case, propose an alternative to the title, and do not rely on the previous assumption. Dahn 23:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The term "critical works" is featured in many other articles dealing with literary, artistic and scientific figures on Wikipedia, and is completely acceptable. I can't believe people are still arguing about such trivial nonsense, while the article on Eliade's scholarly output remains chronically undeveloped.--VMSolo 17:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The Terribly Limited Scope of References In This Article

I contend that this article is not neutral because of the terribly limited scope of references. For example, nearly half of the references included in this artical are from one book by Z. Ornea which apparently primarily focuses on creating a critical view of Eliade's associations with the Iron Guard. On the other hand, there is not one reference from the writings of Mircea Eliade which serve to clarify his positions on the relationships between religions or, far more importantly, his work in furthering studies into the phenomenology of religions. Furthermore most critical references in this article aim to display Eliade, by association, as a fascist and antisemite -- an association which stands in strong contradiction to the mass body of Eliade's scholarly work.

As a solution to this problem I suggest that references taken directly from Eliade's own scholarly writings, or those not critical of his writings, be added with the same ferocity and defensiveness which apparently Dahn has provided to those critical of Eliade's early life. Until this is done, this article will remain unfairly biased in the view it gives of Mircea Eliade's life and works. Jdsudol 06:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Way to state the obvious. You know, I'm getting pretty tired of being depicted as the person who opposes expanding other sections, when I was always merely in favor of referencing other sections as much as the ones I referenced. Let me make this clear, because I see people still have problems understanding the million of replies I already gave on this topic, (whenever someone began to question or attack me willy-nilly): I agree that this article is INCOMPLETE. Allow me add this: up to now, tens of people have criticized me for the utterly idiotic reasons of not having provided more references for other sections (under the assumption that this is what I can and should do) or that I have provided to many references for one section (with the vandal "proposal" to erase or remove text); up to now, tens of people have argued that "the actual Eliade" or "the other Eliade" was under-represented - funny to note that, throughout the months of debating these issues, not a single person of the more aggressive people who claim to know Eliade and speak for him, not one of them was able to expand the sections. No, those sections are currently as big as they are, and not smaller, because a user who has not actually criticized the rest of the text has expanded them and has found references, and because I myself have expanded them.

And, after all, can you see in the article the tags that call for expanding sections? I suppose you can. Have you seen anyone proposing that the article should be limited to its present form? I suppose you did not. I urge to speak to the point if and when you decide to criticize me or anyone else. Dahn 10:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The above intervention of Dahn is disabusing: for being ridiculous, it is by no means less dangerous. Frankly, what Dahn makes, is to insult all others users who contribute to this debate:

• "Let me make this clear, because I see people still have problems understanding the million of replies I already gave on this topic" – meaning: I, Dahn, have condesceded to reply on this topic, ("millions of replies") but you people still have problems understanding my replies. Accusing others of not being able to understand, means calling them stupid. This is a harsh insult.
• "up to now, tens of people have criticized me for the utterly idiotic reasons..." – meaning: those tens of people had all idiotic reasons for criticising Dahn, who, obviously, was right.

In this discussion, Dahn is walking the line of decency. He should consider him warned in all due form. --Timor Stultorum 11:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

If you have to troll, at least change your verses. Proof by verbosity. Bye. Dahn 11:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

All critical works, but no bilbiography is POV

I still believe that having all the cited critical works, but no bibliography whatsoever is not correct, from several points of view:

1. First of all, this is an article about Eliade, and should give access to Eliade's works, in the first place. Some of you needing access to critics is another problem.
2. Despite what you may have discussed (or what Dahn poured into your ears), citing a long list of works is not against wikipedia policies, as you can see at William Shakespeare, where most of his works are all listed, and no critic. You may say that Eliade was a scientist, but he was not only a scientist. He was also a writer and publicist. And take a look at James Fraser (one of Eliade's inspirations), Emil Cioran (Eliade's friend and part in the Legionnaire controversy), Richard Pipes, etc. ALL DECENT ARTICLES CITE THE WORKS OF THE AUTHOR FIRST.
3. Dahn says you somehow talk here only about the scholar. But this is false. Most recent critics somehow criticise Eliade's political positions, making those books into actual unscientific critic.

I also suggest you try to read this article while assuming you don't know shit about Eliade. What does this article say: The guy was a fascist who managed to hide it, he wrote some things, but it's deprecated, and anyway it's not clear what he wrote (because nobody will get to the "bibliography of ME" list). Is this what people should know about Eliade? Think about this, and compare this article with other decent articles. Dpotop 08:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Look, D, as I have said before, I have little to no objection about dropping the critical works about Eliade altogether, and I have even proposed it originally, but was given a fine argument why that should not be (please see Talk:Mircea Eliade#Some new sincere attempts to improve this article section above for my full point, the answer given, and the agreement reached). Note, however, that I will not accept a move to a separate article - the reasons given by PelleSmith would no longer make sense in that instance -, and note that I would certainly oppose creating such an article based on the grotesque assumption that it lists works critical of Eliade rather than works of criticism about Eliade (unfortunately, it is eloquent that you would have accepted, on principle, a list about works critical of someone, even though complying one would have broken every single wikipedia guideline on notability and POV).

I moved bibliography, per Jmabel's suggestion, to a separate article, since it is, and is bound to be, immense. Having done that, I have suggested that this article feature instead a separate and descriptive section about his major literary works (an overview, not a bollet point list), with links to the titles (as future articles are eventually bound to appear on those - much of the reason why I also created a Category:Mircea Eliade). See my point? (Also note that I have made this proposal public not once, but probably five times, and that I was not answered to by anyone but PelleSmith - who thought it a good idea. I'm afraid I don't send out newsletters, so you could have made the effort of reading what I have posted on this page before drawing conclusions.)

Please, be constructive. Dahn 09:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You did not answer my concerns presented above. Dpotop 11:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The bibliography of some of the above-cited authors is immense, too, but nobody has had the bright idea to move it elsewhere. An author is defined first by his work, and only then by critics. I'm sure Jmabel can understand this. And I'm sure he could accept what you deleted, which is a selective bibliography and a selective list of critic books, whereas the "full" lists are given elsewhere (because the critical books mentioned in this article are by no means all that has been written on Eliade, for good and for worse). Dpotop 11:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

As for constructive, from what I see here you are not constructive. Dpotop 11:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Use logic, Dpotop. Please. The issue was not at all about "nobody has had the bright idea to move it elsewhere", but about the fact that the idea is not at all stupid (i.e.: they could just as well apply it there, and I can point many articles where they have!). Again, try and concentrate on what I have told you: my full proposal was to (move 1) get rid of the critical works altogether (only cite them if and when used as references), while (move 2) removing the bibliography altogether, while (move 3) doing for his literary works what we did/are doing for his scholarly ones (i.e: a new section to list all that is relevant in there, and that would read as a text; users interested in a particular edition of a particular story could bypass it and go straight to the over-detailed bibliography). All three points, together. In the process, PelleSmith opposed me and said: no to move 1 (citing reasons which I respected, but for which I take no credit or responsability), an alternative to move 2 (curtailing the list to feature only the most relevant works), and yes to move 3. Upon witnessing this, Jmabel proposed moving the bibliography to a separate article, as an alternative to decimating the titles included (citing the Jorge Luis Borges example). I allowed time for the proposal to seep in, and none of the active users have objected; subsequently, I proceeded to do this, since the list is unruly, not fully copyedited, and easily replaceable in this article with an entire section, of encyclopedic quality, that would provide the same help for all average users (again, those who want the purely trivial details, such as "this story was published for the first time in this volume, and is the only one of the volume never to have been published before, so it is a first edition for it, but not for the others" can always click the link). This is called consensus. I will add here that, originally misunderstanding a point made, and subsequently changing your reasoning entirely, you have concentrated on questioning and misrepresenting my motivations (without checking what others have argued), and then upped and created a content fork, which is in itself grounds for reversion (as it obviously decreases the quality of wikipedia).

Any failure to take these points into consideration in your future posts will result in me not engaging in a dialog with you on this issue: I shall simply view it as spamming.

For Christ, this talk page reminds me too much of 12 Angry Men for comfort. Dahn 11:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I know I've been trying to avoid weighing in on things, but in this case where I see two genuinely good contributors clearly angry at each other over an important article, I'll make an exception.

I don't particularly see this as a POV issue, but I do think that the current arrangement could certainly be improved. I've never shared the objection to really big articles, and I personally would have no problem having the bibliography of his works in the article, but it is pretty clear that the general consensus on Wikipedia has been against massive bibliographies within author articles. And this will inevitably be a massive one. However, similarly to Dahn, I think an overview of his major works, with prose commentary on what they are about rather than on publication details would be a great addition to the article. I'd suggest the addition of such a section, called "Works", with the bibliography as a "main" article listed at the top of that section (and the prose of that section possibly repeated in the bibliography). I think that the "See also" section is probably too obscure a placement for the bibliography; I'm not thrilled with that in the Borges article either, but that article has a lot more discussion of the author's works.

As for the "critical works" section: I'm indifferent to its presence, but I remind Dpotop that this is "critical" in the sense of discussing a writer or artists work, not "critical" in the sense of "oppositional". As far as I can tell, the bulk of the works cited are favorable toward Eliade.

One work (which I'm unfamiliar with) presumably has a typo in its title right now: in Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mirce Eliade, I presume that the odd spelling of Eliade's name is accidental.

I do somewhat agree with Dpotop that "negative" material still makes up too much of the article, but I don't see anything that should be cut; I think this should be dealt with entirely by expansion.

Hope that helps. Now, back to my cave. - Jmabel | Talk 17:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I obviously agree with your overall assessment, but I propose for consideration that the section to be created on his fiction ought not be called "Works" - his scholarly activity produced works as well, but their analysis belongs in the "Scholar" section (right?). Instead, let's go with something explicitly limited to his fiction ("Works of fiction", "The fiction writer", "Fiction literature" or something like that). Dahn 00:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge "Mircea Eliade" with "Eternal return (Eliade)"

I would like to propose the merging of "Mircea Eliade" with "Eternal return (Eliade)", and concomitant header editing as the latter contains Eliade's philosophical/anthropological contributions. --JamesSonne 22:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Eventually, all major titles and themes of his work are going to be articles, so merging what is a tuned and detailed autonomous article for just one of the many large contributions is pointless and counter-productive (like merging Charles Dickens with Great Expectations, Sketches by Boz, or A Tale of Two Cities). Consider what relevancy the Bagadjimbiri urinating has to this article, and then ponder its purpose in there. [Btw, with 2 contrib., one of which is a reminiscent proposal, I have half a mind to call for a checkuser.] Dahn 22:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • [new to posting in the community, sorry] --JamesSonne 01:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• I would like to, if I may, elucidated my request further. The article requested for merging with this article does not contain information on Eliade's various works, but rather his salient philosophical ideas that emerge from them. This merging would give this article a more balanced look at what may be considered by some to be Eliade's important life efforts, which are currently absent from this article. If not a merging, and thus an obliteration of the article requested for merging, it may be beneficial to include in this article more information from the article requested for merging.
  • I myself agree with more content being summarized in the Scholar section, as long as it is done while keeping in mind that mentions need to be coherent and essential, and that they may be subject to ample changes the moment when we have access to overlooks of his work (we may eventually have to change priorities and to clarify ideas beyond the scope of that article). Otherwise, we would simply be forking content. Dahn 01:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I am not sure that coherence is always necessary for inclusion. Sometimes there is such a diversity of view points and the complexity is so big that coherence is not fully possible. I think that lack of coherence is no excuse to remove material or simplify things more than the sources allow. Andries 22:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Of course, and I did not mean that. I was just emphasizing that the imperative is to have a relevant addition rather than a large one. I encourage for sources citations and relevant quotes to be duplicated here, but with an accent on summarizing rather than mirroring content. Dahn 00:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• I won't take sides in this argument, mainly because I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and I don't feel I completely understand Wikipedia's quality standards yet (see my early difficulties with Eternal return (Eliade) and my still unresolved problems with myth and ritual)--but also because I don't feel passionate enough. However, I think Dahn and JamesSonne may be talking past each other to an extent.
  • Dahn is simply noting the obvious point that we can't just take everything in Eternal return (Eliade) and dump it into the Mircea Eliade article. Adding an endless explication of one of Eliade's theories (even his major theory) doesn't in any sense "balance" an overemphasis on his shady political involvements. Balance can only be achieved by a thorough examination of his non-political life and scholarship as a whole. (In particular, although Cosmos and History, The Sacred and the Profane, and Myths, Dreams and Mysteries are almost monotonous reexaminations of the sacred-profane and eternal return concepts, Eliade also wrote books on all sorts of crazy subjects like shamanism and alchemy. His Shamanism, for instance, can't be reduced to a reexamination of the sacred-profane idea in a new context, although it incorporates the sacred-profane idea.)
  • JamesSonne is completely right in the sense that the Mircea Eliade article should have started out with a lengthy discussion of the eternal return to begin with. And I don't think merging Eternal return (Eliade) with Mircea Eliade is the same as merging Great Expectations with Charles Dickens. Yes, eventually all of Eliade's works and ideas will have their own articles, but that isn't happening quickly. The eternal return--the idea that religious behavior is not simply an imitation of, but also a participation in, sacred time--has been widely adopted in religious studies; it is Eliade's most enduring and distinctive idea--and it didn't even have its own article when I first joined Wikipedia! That shows how quickly Eliade's ideas and works are getting their own articles. And, since it IS Eliade's most enduring and distinctive idea, the eternal return probably deserves a discussion in Mircea Eliade that is at least as long as the discussion of his politics. It is not one of his works or ideas; it is the basic principle that informs almost all his works and ideas (open up any Eliade book).

I have a feeling that any attempt I make to create a new "Eternal return" section in Mircea Eliade is going to upset a lot of people and get this argument nowhere. For now, I'm keeping my hands clean of editing this article.--Phatius McBluff 10:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Phatius, you are certainly the best person to summarize that article (since you authored it). I would welcome your editing of a new section inside the "Scholar" one (you, with more grasp of Eliade's scholarly works than any of us here, are most likely to know how the overall "Scholar" should look in the end - so you probably know what should constitute a section of it and what shouldn't). My main concern was that, since we all seemed to have little actual awareness of his entire work, we would simply be pulling on a thread in the hope that it would get us somewhere, at the risk of ending up somewhere completely irrelevant. Again, I have no objection. Dahn 10:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Phatius, please don't forget to add the volumes you used to the "References" section, specifying the edition (otherwise, the page by page citation will be useless). Dahn 01:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I also want to point out that creating a subsection for just one sentence looks horrible. Is it ok if I condense the text in the future (in format, not in content)? I for one cannot see why we would need to have subsections for subsections: the higher level (the === level, as opposed to the ==== level) is perfectly fine without its own sections, and the idea is perfectly intelligible. Dahn 01:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the specific references. Feel free to condense the text, but keep in mind that Eliade's reasoning can get rather dense and wordy at times. I purposely divided the text into lots of small sections, each with its own introductory sentence, etc., so that readers could follow the arguments more easily.--Phatius McBluff 01:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Dahn 01:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

A gleam of hope for this article

emerges from the recent interventions of Phatius McBluff. His luminous initiative, if continued and developed, will surely help this poor article out of the present quagmire of semi-educated triviality. Of course, there will be things to discuss over one aspect or another of Eliade’s work and legacy. For instance, I would suggest that besides the theory of "eternal return", undoubtedly being one of the "most enduring and influential contribution to religious studies", Eliade has a crucial role in developing a dialectic of hierophanies and an onthology of the sacred, anticipating at the same time the critical value myths take in a desacralized world. Anyway, I think that for now it’s still premature to debate on all this, before this article ceases to be just another example of semi-educated enlightening the ignorants. Phatius try to break through is worth an applause. --Timor Stultorum 18:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Timor, I believe that my recent additions to the "Sacred and Profane" and "Symbolism of the Center" sections answer, at least to an extent, your concerns about adding info on "a dialectic of hierophanies" and "an ontology of the sacred". Everyone, please let me know if you think I'm missing anything big.--Phatius McBluff 20:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

What should go into a "general description" of Eliade's work in the "Scholar" header?

I’ve carefully read your edits and found them very pertinent. Thanks to your contributions, this entry begins looking like decently encyclopaedic. My above suggestions referred rather to a general characterization of Eliade’s scientific work in the lead. You already improved the lead of the article, providing essential information about the main merits of Eliade’s work, mentioning the study of hierophanies and the eternal return, that is the "what" and the "how" of an ontology of the sacred. I wonder if a more general description of Eliade’s scientific work as "semiotics of the religious phenomenon" would bring further information. More generally, if we take a look at some serious encyclopaedia, we find Eliade depicted as "one of the leading religion scholars" (Brockhaus and Meyers) and as an "historian of religions and man of letters, distinguished for his researches in the symbolic language…" (Britannica) --Timor Stultorum 15:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Timor, thank you for your words in praise of my additions. However, I feel that I'm increasingly viewed in an almost deferential way when it comes to the section of this article on Eliade's scholarship. I must emphasize that I am NOT an authority on Eliade, only a lay reader well-read in Eliade's works and comparative mythology in general. Dahn said I have "more grasp of Eliade's scholarly works than any of [you] here". Maybe that's true, but I have already put down (in a highly summarized form, of course) almost everything I know about Eliade's scholarship--or, at least, everything I think I can effectively convert into an encyclopedic style of presentation. As for Eliade's ideas on religious semiotics (symbolism), I can only say that I haven't figured out how to effectively summarize Eliade's discussions of symbolism in Myths and Symbols and Patterns in Comparative Religion, given that both books consist of disjointed discussions of many different symbols from all over the place. Of course, I could just list info on shells, then info on trees, then info on the Earth Mother, and so on, but I would only consider doing that as a last resort, after having failed to work all of Eliade's ideas on symbolism into a single coherent framework akin to his framework for hierophanies. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to comb Eliade's books for such a coherent framework right now. Currently, I don't have the time or the energy to read back over Eliade's works to see if there's anything else I want to pull out for the article. This is Wikipedia, guys; if you feel a certain discussion is lacking, then don't hesitate to add it yourselves.--Phatius McBluff 03:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, although it would be correct, I'm not sure that it would be to the point to call Eliade's work a "semiotics of the sacred". True, symbols play a big role in his vision of religion (as they must in any vision of religion). True, everything Eliade discusses (liturgical time, the symbolism of the Center, etc.) could be seen as a form of symbolism or language. Yet to call what he did "semiotics" seems (to me) to draw attention away from the main point, which is that Eliade discussed the stark break between the secular experience of the world and the religious experience of it. For modern, secular man, the world simply is what it is; examining the world won't tell you how it or man ought to be: any purpose must be invented and imposed by man. But to homo religiosus (Eliade argues), the world has a built-in structure to which man conforms himself, a pattern established by a hierophany, a manifestation of the Sacred. Also, for modern man, time is a straight line; what is past is past. But for religious man, to conform to the pattern of a hierophany is to participate in the hierophany itself, no matter how long ago it occurred. Thus, I would say that Eliade's major contribution was to develop our understanding of the discontinuity between religious thought and secular thought. Thoughts, anyone?--Phatius McBluff 10:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. You’re right: describing Eliade as a “semiotician of the religion” would be too reductionist. As for the appraisals of your contributions, sure, decent persons feel uncomfortable with praise, and I am ready to excuse me for this. However, if you visit this talk page, you’ll understand the background and the reasons of my enthusiasm in regard to your contributions: since I was and I still am by now not able to contribute more than some words on the talk page, you are the only one to bring some substance to this article, which otherwise risks to sink into semi-educated triviality… So, please keep on working. A last point for now: my concern as to what should go into a "general description" of Eliade's work regarded less the "Scholar" header and more the lead section of the very article. The reader should be offered brief information about the reasons why this Eliade is worth an encyclopaedic entry: who was the person, what did he, how important is his work, why. IMO, every of these points is briefly addressed in the lead section, except how important. (Surely, appraisals are a delicate issue, especially in the WP, but describing Eliade's work as "leading" or "seminal" or "important" is amply backed by the scientific community) Cheers, --Timor Stultorum 12:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I note you continue to troll and misrepresent the others' points. Dahn 12:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The header for the whole article

After some thought, I've added the following to the header info on Eliade:

He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. As a tool for interpreting religion, his theory that hierophanies (events that manifest the Sacred) form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred space/time and profane space/time, has proved a far more widely applicable than the older term "theophany", which denotes the manifestation of a god. His most enduring and influential contribution to religious studies was possibly his theory of "eternal return", which holds that myths and rituals do not simply record or imitate hierophanies, but actually participate in them (at least to the minds of the religious). In academia, the eternal return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.

I think this is reasonably neutral (making it clear why Eliade deserves an article, while stopping short of promoting his ideas).

--Phatius McBluff 23:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

"Everything for the Fatherland"

The issue is not one of literal translation, but of usage. The name is usually translated as "Everything for the Fatherland" (or "All for the Fatherland") in English reference [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. References to "Everything/All for the Country" are sporadic.

The two variants are also present in several scholarly works (Tibor Iván Berend, Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II; Barnet Litvinoff, The Burning Bush: Anti-Semitism and World History; Joseph Slabey Rouček, The Politics of the Balkans etc.), while "Everything/All for the Country" appears to be used by, well, none. Dahn 23:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, usage wins. And, for all it's worth, "All for the Fatherland" seems better English than "All for the Country" -- the only way something like that would sound OK would be "For God, King, and Country", but that's in another context. Which brings me to a question: why Fatherland, and not Motherland, as in "Patria Mamă" (or, "Patria Mumă")? I read the discussion in those articles, but it's still not clear to me why the former is considered to be the preferred translation. Any good reference for that? Turgidson 00:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you mean "in general" (I'm not sure, though, so I apologize if I didn't get you). Well, what has always struck me that the word "patria" has a hermaphrodite quirk ("pater" turned feminine...). Dahn 01:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

From what I know, Fatherland is used when referring to Germany (Vaterland), and Motherland when referring to (Mother) Russia (Rodina). For other coutries, there does not seem to be such a definite rule, though the above two articles seek to establish more-or-less precise guidelines. In the case at hand, since "Totul pentru Ţară" was associated with the Iron Guard, the "Fatherland" translation possibly tries to convey a German connotation. But this is just speculation... Turgidson 02:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dahn, sorry about the confusion. I wasn't yet familiar with the format of the Talk page, so I didn't know where to look for your comment - thank you for clarifying. I did have a question though regarding the usage of "Fatherland". I had mentioned that the "Totul pentru Tara" party would have a literal translation as either "All for Country" or "Everything for Country", being that "tara" literally means "country" in Romanian. Maybe I am mistaken, but I always understood the word "Fatherland" to mean "patria" or "patrie" hence the pater/father derivation. My question is, since the translation is incorrect (even though there are english references to it), how does one reconcile (as an academic) an improper translation that's been in common usage, with what a literal translation should be? Thx. Yanks-rule 02:27, 11 March 2007

Hi Yanks. Firstly, the translation into English is not incorrect, just not literal. Also, as Turgidson pointed out above, the translation in use is better English than a literal one. I also think it strives to cover a meaning that is present in the Romanian original, but would be lost in a literal translation. What we did here on wikipedia was to provide all the alternatives where the main mention of the group is made (in the Iron Guard article), as we did with suggesting that "Great Romania" was a literal translation of the Romanian România Mare - although sources overwhelmingly use "-er Romania". Dahn 11:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dahn - thanks for the clarification. In case you were curious I did find a few instances of "Country" being used, but its definitely not prevalent.

1) Institute of Historical Review - "March 20, 1935: Codreanu institutes Totul Pentru Tara (Everything for the Country) as a legal party under the presidency of General Gheorghe Cantacuzino." (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v07/v07p193_Ronnett.html)

There were a few other instances, but nothing you'd call scholarly. Best - Yanks-rule —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yanks-rule (talk • contribs) 10 March 2007.

And that one citation is from a Holocaust Revisionist source. - Jmabel | Talk 00:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I Am Mayuma

Hi, I am Mayuma, this is my user name in Ro.wiki. I have been researching in several archives on a book on Mircea Eliade and I have studied the question of the interview given to Adrian Păunescu. Eliade taped the interview and he rejected the additions made by Păunescu himself for his montly magazine, Flacăra, so I think u shouldn t rely on this statement in your article Eliade praised the communist youth.

If anything, that would vouch an addition to the text, not a removal. Provided, of course, this can be backed up from a reliable source, and not just postulated. Dahn 10:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I Am Mayuma

Actually I can quote from his Securitate Forreign Intelligence file, I wanted to do it in my book first but I can give here some hints. My real name is Iulian Baicus, I am Assistant Professor at Faculty of Letters at Bucharest University, and Paul Cernat is my fellow colleague, but I am researching at CNSAS right now. Mircea Eliade was reluctant to give that interview so he had taped it and when it was published, he refused to recognize several statements added by Adrian Păunescu. In some of the worst passages he stated that Nicolae Ceauşescu should receive the Nobel prize for peace cause he is the most valiant leader in Eastern Europe. Eliade protested against Păunescu manner of conducting the interview in a letter sent to Radio Free Europe. I have the precise page from the file I took my information. From your article one could think Eliade was a sort of admirer of Adrian Păunescu and of the Romanian communist youth. If you agree I can state this in the article I will quote the exact name of the SIE file and the page.

No, I'm sorry. You will have to quote it with a secondary source (as is the quote via Cernat). If Eliade did indeed publicize the protest, it should be present in such a source. It is a question of reliability, not one of confidence. Dahn 21:03, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think your secondary source is casting a shadow on Mircea Eliade's biography, but I will comment on this passage in my book. Mayuma 21:03, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, when it is published, you are welcome to cite it for what it says. Dahn 15:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I Am Mayuma

I Am the Walrus. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Biruitorul 02:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Destroyer of Worlds -- that a song by Bathory (not Erzsébet)? Turgidson 03:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, editors/contributors for improving this article !!

This article has certainly been improved. My gratitude to those whose hard work & dedication it represents. It is much more complete and fitting.

Hagiography

The article as it stands gives no background an perspective on Eliade's views. It even seems that he pioneered the idea of sacred-profane dichotomy as the core of religion, while he was almost 40 years late.--BMF81 21:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

As I have said in my edit summary, the detail does not belong in the lead, and is probably irrelevant to this article. Also, as far as I can tell, this article does not appear to state that he initiated the theory. Furthermore, neither of two articles cited have a direct connection to Eliade, which means that adding them here may fall under the section of WP:OR referring to using published material as a means to advance a position not explicitly present in that material. Dahn 22:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

To clarify my last edit: context referring to the earlier use of "sacred and profane", if it makes a direct mention of Eliade, belongs in the "Scholar" section, not in the lead (for comparison, we do not explain the earlier meanings of "Communism" or "Dialectics" in the lead for the Karl Marx article). The link to the article in the lead is enough; I cannot really tell if the detail is important for Eliade, but, if it is, it still has no place in the lead. Dahn 23:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A recent edit added citneeded templates here: "One of his most influential contributions to religious studies‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them. In academia, the Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.<ref>Eliade, ''Shamanism'', p.xiii</ref>‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› " the stated reason was that the sentences in question constituted praise. In fact, those two sentences constitute acknowledgments of notability: one clarifies that, among his most important contributions, there was one called "eternal return"; the other indicates that it is among the most used theories of its kinds - which it is, as the text itself expands and references below, and as attested by the fact that Eliade, for better or worse, was a man of influence in his community. While I was never charmed about the original editor having seemingly cited Eliade to seemingly indicate how important his theory was, it is granted that his theories were influential on the scientific community, without ifs and buts.

Another recent move was the addition of a NPOV template to a section on his scholarly contributions. Having personally combed that section, I must object to the implication that it is explicitly pro-Eliade - there is, afaict, no sentence where praise of him would be unilaterally voiced (or even voiced at all). Not being well acquainted with Eliade's work, I must presume that the implication was one regarding a sin of omission, in respect to the already discussed notion that Eliade's work in whatever area was preceded by other scholars. Well, afaict, nowhere does the text say that he pioneered in respect to notion he used, just in the way he applied them. Furthermore, if the contributor thinks more content is needed, let him or her contribute content that he or she did not deduce means something about Eliade, but one which at least mentions Eliade by name. Furthermore, the template advertises a discussion on the talk page, and that discussion does not appear to be taking place.

I would also like to note that the "context" template applies only to introductions (and, as pointed out, does not apply here).

By looking over the past history of this page, one can see that I am not one of Eliade's fans, and that I have been accused of being one of his detractors. But tagging a well-sourced article because it does not confirm to one unpublicized position is neither constructive nor fair. Dahn 13:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dahn here. He has patrolled my edits with ruthless vigilance (to good effect, I should add) for anything resembling "original research" or promotion of Eliade's ideas. When he's done combing an article, you can be sure it doesn't contain anything that presents Eliade in too positive a light.

With regard to the NPOV template, Dahn said:

"Not being well acquainted with Eliade's work, I must presume that the implication was one regarding a sin of omission, in respect to the already discussed notion that Eliade's work in whatever area was preceded by other scholars."

This is precisely the problem (if you want to call it that) with much of Eliade's work. In the introduction to The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade cites Rudolf Otto as his predecessor in discussing "the sense of the sacred"; this makes it seem like Eliade's building primarily off of Otto. Yet this apparently isn't the case. According to an evidently well-researched website that I have no reason to suspect of falsehood,

"Mircea Eliade travesties Durkheim in The Sacred & The Profane (1957) by ignoring completely his fundamental contribution to the study of the sacred. Durkheim had made the sacred - profane dichotomy a central theme of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), [1] but Eliade passes over this in total silence, leaving you to suppose he is himself first in the field, with no previous account to consider."[6]

This is a considerable blow to Eliade's character (not to his ideas). Many of Eliade's concepts, like the break with profane time and return to sacred time, were already discussed by Durkheim. By citing Otto as his inspiration instead of Durkheim, Eliade makes himself look more original than he really is. However, I'm not going to add a discussion of this "problem" to the article, because right now the only source I have is some random guy who knows how to put up a nice website. If anyone can find a more reputable source that discusses this "problem", please feel free to discuss it in the article. --Phatius McBluff 22:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Tungusic/magician

Dahn

(1)I have changed 'overlook' to overview' since the former rings ambiguously (to overlook = to miss seeing, disregard). (2) The word magician is, as you yourself know, problematical. Eliade liked, unless my memory fails me, the idea of a 'technician of the sacred'. On that same page, in the French edition, he speaks of 'manipulator of the sacred'(Mircea Eliade Le chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase, 2ième ed. Payot Paris 1968 p.22, which is an echo of Plato. In the Gorgias Socrates holds that Gorgias’s position is that rhetoric as a peithous dêmiourgos (453a2), a ‘craftsman of persuasion’).(3) the other adjustment is to clarify that while shamanism in the classic anthropological literature of his day was considered peculiar to Central Asia and Sibera, the word we use to denote the phenomenon came from just one term used by one of the relevant tribal cultures of that vast area. Your rephrasing looked good, but I thought it required smoothing out, given other adjustments.

Regards Nishidani 10:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

My edit in that paragraph was meant to reflect what you had pointed out in your previous summary, and thus avoid articles contradicting each other. Your clarifications were both necessary and welcomed. Dahn 10:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn Thank you. Seeing the cantankerous treatment over the page your very good contribution has produced, I did not wish to seem pernickety. A few notes for suggestions (1) Eliade had gross debts to Jung. (2)The 'Eternal Return' owes much to his reading of Nietzsche against the Classic and Indian sources, and is not considered seriously now, at least in the tendentious way he formulated it. (3)The sacred and profane distinction is inherent in classical languages, and had a vast literature on it long before Otto popularized it. (4)Durkheim's prior discussion occurs in Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912)pp.50ff. (5) Bellow's caricature of him in Ravelstein esp.pp.124-6, reports primarily Allan Bloom's attitude to Eliade, not necessarily Bellow's. Keep up the good work Nishidani 12:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I must note that virtually the entire credit for the sections dealing with Eliade's scholarly works is owed to Phatius McBluff (I only handled structuring additional info). That said, I encourage you to elaborate on any/all the issues you present, but please do so by citing sources that specifically refer to Eliade, whether criticizing him or praising him (and I'm sure sources can be found for all of the points you make).

There is one point you make which involves one of my own additions: it is in reference to Ravelstein. At the time I added the info, the sources I found had as much to say about that as is presently in the text. Personally, I cannot confirm or deny your view (I did not read the book, and I could not find more critical material detailing the reference to Eliade and its background - this material would have been necessary for adding to the article regardless of whether I had read the book or not). Sources mentioning Bellow, Bloom and Eliade together are scarce and seem inconclusive (though I did find some Romanian-language articles in which literary critic Nicolae Manolescu is quoted with a claim that neither Bloom nor Eliade are actual characters in the book). I'll keep looking, and perhaps you too will help add to it. Dahn 15:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well thanks to Phatius McBluff as well, and my apologies. I only entered the notes above here because I didn't want to alter the text. which is the work of many others who follow this more closely than I can. I did my MA preliminary on Greek Shamanism, so I have strong memories of all of Eliade's work, but the documentation is in some files I have misplaced, and I may not be able to help concretely. I knew Evola's own personal doctor, who recounted to me Eliade's encounters with the former. But again, that is only my memory, and as such mere hearsay. I do know that in Evolian circles, the correspondence is kept (understandably - they are an extremist bunch) under tight lock and key. I do know, as a longtime student of nationalist ideologies the world over, that Eliade's texts are considered by 'adepts' as having a twofold reading (esoteric and secular), something that even struck me as probable when I first read them as a young secular outsider. That is why I cited the reminiscence from 'Fragments' about Evola. Elsewhere in his journal Eliade himself hints at the same distinction. The whole male/female (male first-female second qua 'decadent' phenomenon) binome, for example, in his discussion of shamanism flies in the face of the literature, and reflects his private theory positing an 'Adamic' "in illo tempore" mage capable of bridging the gap between this world (Northern/Nordic) and the other world. The notion of temporal decadence, or to use the Heideggerian term, the 'errancy'(Die Irre) of historical time, which introduces the feminine, the 'South' and agriculture, and destroys the heroic masculine world of the sacred is an ideological construct with analogies in the esoteric far right ideologies of national culture in Germany and Italy at that time. This is how his esoteric friends read his work (2) Ravelstein is, all insiders and the critical world agree, a caricatural portrait of Bloom. The comments made in the novel on pages pp.124-6 about him being a follower of Nae Ionesco, and that 'the record shows what he wrote about the (excuse my transcription) Jew-syphilis that infected the high civilisation of the Balkans." (S Bellow, Ravelstein 2000, Penguin ed.p.126) are all given as citations of what Ravelstein aka Bloom told the author. The book is of course a novel, but an extremely realistic one, which takes pains not to avoid precise indications as to the identities of the people portrayed under pseudonyms. No doubt some academic has teased this out. I don't know the critical literature, have no access to libraries other than my own, and cannot pursue this. I only dropped in these few notes as a prompt for further researches by those who have composed the article.Best wishes for the page Nishidani 17:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice if we get more on the "twofold reading" (one of the sources I introduced in the text already alludes to this - albeit it is a Romanian-language tertiary one).

I see your point about Ravelstein, and I'll add an indication of the fact that Grielescu is portrayed through Ravelstein's statements (since that seems to be a basic fact). Thank you again. Dahn 05:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Additions/Changes

I take issue with the deletion of the references to Yakov Rabinovich's work from the legacy section of this article. Rabinovich, whose works are available online and may be easily consulted through the links which were deleted with the references, has in fact systematically applied Eliade's archetypalism in two books, "Faces of God" and "The Rotting Goddess." The removal of these legitimate references was an act of vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.245.176 (talk) 22:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Elliades Shamanism "Kehoe is highly critical of Mircea Eliade's work. Eliade, being a historian rather than an anthropologist, had never done any field work or made any direct contact with 'shamans' or cultures practicing 'shamanism'. According to Kehoe, Eliade's 'shamanism' is an invention synthesized from various sources unsupported by more direct research."

-Bill July 26, 2007

Yes, Bill, I kept it in the text, moved it to another section (instead of leaving it is a separate section tied to nothing), and asked you if you could please indicate what pages the relevant criticism is on. Dahn 05:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Could I add a word? If Kehoe's criticism is that he is an armchair theorist, that is true, but most of the founding fathers of the discipline were, until functionalism. Great field workers like Edmund Leach applied the airchair theorizing of Claude Lévi-Strauss to some considerable effect to their work. Eliade couldn't do field work in Siberia and Central Russia because it was under Soviet control, in any case. But he did read a very large number of 'field' reports, like those of Radloff and Shirokogoroff. His achievement in revitalizing a neglected subject, and stimulating the massive research that followed, was and remains notable. Nishidani 06:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

(1) ‘conforms himself’ is slightly awkward in English, perhaps. Might one not say ‘to which man conforms, assimilating his particular experiences to the received archetypes of his religious tradition.’?

The following point might help as well.

(2)‘Eliade rejects, on many occasions, a monocausal, ‘liberal-rationalist’, ‘scientific reductionism’, (and also sociological and psychological reductionism), which either ignores or denies the specific, original meaning or ‘intention’ of a phenomenon.’ Adrian Marino, L’Herméneutique de Mircea Eliade,’ tr.Jean Gouillard, Gallimard, Paris 1981 p.60 (=Adrian Marino,Hermeneutica lui Mircea Eliade, Cluj-Napoca,1980)Regards Nishidani 09:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess the passage on Kehoe's criticism is fine the way it is now. However, I'd still like to see some specific page numbers for each of the claims we're drawing from that book. After all, those are strong claims (although rather true ones) against Eliade's category of "shamanism". Yet, until I can get my hands on a copy of Kehoe's book, I'll leave that passage alone.

With regard to Nishidani's suggested quote about Eliade's anti-reductionist attitude: that's a great quote, and it belongs in the article. However, it belongs in the section on Eliade's general view of religion, or in a new section on "Eliade's methodology", not as a response to criticisms of Eliade's Shamanism. (I'm not sure if that was your intention, Nishidani; I'm making this point just in case.) --Phatius McBluff 18:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Phatius McBluff I put the few things I know in here because I have only read the text once, and don't know where to place eventual contributions. I trust you blokes can find, if some of it is useful, where to best slip it in. On Kehoe, I am not familiar with the work, but as quoted, it is rather question-begging. Eliade, like his brilliant Polish predecessor M.A.Czaplicka (1914), wrote a theory of 'shamanism', a phenomenon involving a vast global range of tribal cultures by surveying an immense amount of ethnographic material. That theory is, in my personal understanding, defective (particularly for the ideological undergirding it presupposes) - all theories of this kind are - but for all that heuristically powerful. The value of a theory historically lies in its capacity to capture specialist attention, focus in from a fresh perspective on a category hitherto ignored and regenerate thinking on an issue. In this sense, Eliade's work was seminal, if not palmary. It helped see structural continuities over vastly different areas, from Ireland to South America. Even today, his positing of structural identities between yogic techniques and shamanic praxis(Le Yoga.Immortalité et Liberté, 1954) not only put a ragbag of unnconnected material into coherent form, but brought out in relief striking cross-cultural symmetries, and still stands as an important contribution to the subject (Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies, Smithsonian Institute, 1993 p.371). Anyone can do field work: few come up with strong and productively original concepts. I say this as someone (a nobody, but still) who has been from the start suspicious of Eliade's hidden agendas. Honour where honour is due.Nishidani 19:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Nishidani, I couldn't agree with you more. Eliade's tendency to lump diverse cultural phenomena together into simplistic categories (e.g., cyclic time, High God, "shamanism") is both his weakness and his strength. It's his weakness because, as you note, such categories are over-generalizations, and thus untrue. It's his strength because, as you note, such categories are useful for organizing information and providing a framework for further research (much like Levi-Strauss's "structural" approach to everything under the sun). It's a pity that last post of yours was a talk page post and not a passage from a scholarly article; it would have been a perfect counterbalance for the "criticism" section. I'll keep my eyes open for such a quote to add to the article. --Phatius McBluff 18:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, wait. I think I've found the perfect passage that captures exactly what we were discussing. It's from Wendy Doniger's introduction to Eliade's Shamanism. If incorporating it into the article, I would write something like this:

Although Wendy Doniger sees many of Eliade's hypotheses as over-generalizations, she notes that his "boldness" allowed him to see patterns "that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history". Whether true or not, she argues, Eliade's theories are still useful, "as starting points for the comparative study of religion". She also argues that they have been able to accommodate "new data to which Eliade did not have access".

--Phatius McBluff 19:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I added that passage (with minor changes) to the article. I added it right after the 1st paragraph of the "Criticism" section. --Phatius McBluff 19:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Phatius McBluff. Nice to see that Wendy Doniger quote, which I was unfamiliar with. Thanks. She's controversial but interesting scholars are. By the way the quote from the French trans. of Adrian Marino's work, re his anti-reductionism, echoes something Eliade himself said:

'These spiritual documents - myths, symbols, divine figures, divine figures, contemplative techniques, and so on - had previously been studied, if at all, with the detachment and indifference with which nineteenth-century naturalists studied insects. But it has now begun to be realized that these documents express existential situations, and that consequently they form part of the history of the human spirit. Thus, the proper procedure for grasping their meaning is not the naturalist's 'objectivity', but the intelligent sympathy of the hermeneut. It was the procedure itelf that had to be changed.(Eliade's italics). For even the strangest or the most aberrant form of behavior must be regarded as a human phenomenon; it cannot be interpreted as a zoological phenomenon or an instance of teratology.This conviction guided my research on the meaning and function of myths, the structure of research symbols, and in general, of the dialectics of the sacred and the profane.' M Eliade, Preface to No Souvenirs: Journal, 1957-1969, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and Henley 1978 p.xii

To posit that an 'existential situation' can be extraterritorial to historical circumstances and man's individual formation within them was an extraordinary claim to make, and in this he was soothed, if deleteriously, by Jung's own influence.

(2) If you're curious about part of the reason why this doesn't function,why historical factors impact on myth, see Luc de Heusch,Le Rwanda et la civilisation interlacustre, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1966 esp.272ff.,(of course the historical sociology of witchcraft since the 60s has definitively torn the thesis apart anyway) and why sociological factors are crucial to understanding spiritual phenomenon (like possession, for Eliade,shamanism's inverse), why women historically must have been prominent (for example, words for male shamans are etymological isolates often in Turkic-Altaic languages, whereas those for women seem to derive from a common proto-linguistic form. This troubles Eliade's thesis.) see I.M.Lewis,Ecstatic Religion1971 passim esp.pp.49ff.Even that work is problematical, what book ain't, but . .Keep up the good work, chaps Nishidani 20:16, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing the question from the section titles — I have not seen them used for this purpose before. Presumably, this has the risk of making it seem that Eliade did actually overgeneralize, have fascist influences in his work etc.; so what I did instead was to leave out the section about the conference from the "Criticism" section, and group all others under that title. Oh, and I also changed "right-wing" to "far right" in the title - "right-wing" could just as well mean "neoliberal", "liberatrian" etc.

What we could consider in the future is creating a final section on "Legacy", grouping stuff such as portrayals, names given to places etc. - we could move the conference part there (it is all posthumous anyway), and add the sections about him in cinema and him as a fictional character. What do you guys think? Dahn 05:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn & User:Phatius McBluff. I have made bold to correct the date in the bibliography re Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning & Functions in Ancient & Other Cultures. which was given as 1974, instead of 1970. The slip is probably due to the fact that his later volume, Greek Myths, Penguin Harmondsworth came out 1974. I might note that Kirk in this second work has several pages (pp.63-65) strongly critical of the Eternal Return-nostalgia for origins theory. It may fit Aborginal rituals of mythic evocation, but is out of synch with the patterns of Amerindian myth. Secondly, he dismisses the relevance of Eliade's theory to Greek myth, which overwhelming is not one of a recursion to the creative era of origins. It's well worth reading. Another point worth scanning the critical literature for is links between Eliade's foundational myths of cities, and the myths of return evoked by annual reenactments, and Malinowski's Charter Theory of Myth.

Ooos, didn't notice this clarification. Will change back. But please note that unused works do not count as references (the other Kirk book was not used, and it was also confusing - the notes just said "Kirk", and it was no longer clear "which" Kirk). We can re-add it to the "Further reading" section, but am I to understand you want to use it in the future? Because the best thing to do is to add a source once it was used. Dahn 09:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn Yes, there is a problem in designations of the kind you have noted and now emended. We speak of conservative right and extreme right, just as no one would wish to confound Theodor Adorno or Max Horkheimer with members of die rote Kapelle. Undoubtedly Eliade was attracted, precisely because of his theory of a recursion of creative origins, to the primordial sources of identity, to the rebarbative mythological charters of Nazism and Fascism, which evoked either the wild tribal past of Germany, or the institutional origins of Roman empire as established by historical culture heroes in Italy. Jung was an early admirer of this, and must have had considerable impact on Eliade. But, just as Evola had an arcane, highly aristocratic-conservative spiritual twist to his fascism, so did Eliade. Evola for example, did put out an edition of the notorious Tzarist forgery The Protocols of Zion, which fitted the regime's turn towards classic anti-semitism, indeed anticipated it (it was not in fascism's original programme), but he is on record also as suspending judgement as to whether the bizarre scene of conspiracy in it was true, as fascist authorities made out. To him, even if the document was not (and indeed it wasn't)true historically, it was authentic spiritually. This seems close to Eliade's approach. They had strong fascist leanings, but were for an aristocracy of the spirit, shared by 'initiates', something which stood in tension with the mechanisms of mob rhetoric employed by regimes they otherwise supported. Sorry for the editorializing. Nishidani 09:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I very much agree with your assessment, Nishidani. I think though that the problem here was mainly one of cultural patterns: I notice that many Anglo-Saxons tend to use "right-wing" when they mean "far right". Plus, I think that Eliade merely having a "nationalist and right-wing" influence in his work, as opposed to the current form, was not and could not have been the matter for controversy. Dahn 09:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn My apologies. I left the 1974 book in there expecting it would eventually be used, because it elaborates and adds detail to his 1970 remarks. I.e.

'myths and rituals, which in Australia are rather closely linked, can be said to actualize these beings and to bring the Dreamtime into the present with potent and fruitful results.

'Eliade generalizes this conception without subjecting it to the stringent test of applying it to the majority of myths in many different cultures. He simply reiterates . .The idea of the Dreamtime is a unique conception; other myths cannot necessarily be seen in this light. Amerindian myths, for example, are not evocative or nostalgic in tone, but tend to be detailed and severely practical. Many are about animals who acted as inventors or 'culture heroes' in(p64 Kirk 1974)/a mythical epoch that was, admittedly, the time when things were put into order. But since then the animals have turned into men, and the distinction between men and animals has become a firm one. That in itself reduces the effectiveness of myth-telling as a reconstitution of primordial power. Moreover many Amerindian myths manifestly have other and quite different functions; I am thinking particularly of the Amazonian myths considered in detail by Lévi-Strauss and of the North-west coast myths collected by Boas, which contain foundation and charter acts, folktale motifs, trivial aetiologies, serious structural implications...

Greek myths, too, utterly fail to support Eliade's universal theory. The whole range of Greek heroic myths lies outside any true 'creative' era.'p.65 (=Kirk The Nature of Greek Myths 1974 pp.64-5) and concluding:- 'Eliade's idea is a valuable perception about certain myths, not a guide to the proper understanding of all of them' p.66. Since I stuff up these wiki protocols, not being intimately familiar with them, perhaps I should just drop occasional notes only in here, so others can look, use or ignore.Nishidani 09:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would jump at the chance of summarizing this in the article and, of course, re-add the reference as I do that. This is unless, of course, you would like to do it yourself. I am equally willing to copyedit any fragment you would consider adding yourself for minor stuff like format and protocols (using a single format for references etc). The only, so to say, objections I had were that, at that moment, the reference you provided clashed with another one and it was not itself used in citations. Not knowing what its purpose was, I thought it best not to leave it in the text for now.

Btw: the citations currently look the way I prefer them. This is merely because I was the first one to add a significant number of citations to the text. That said, if there are any objections to them, feel free to change the format throughout or ask me to do it myself. I only changed newer citations to the same format only because it was easier than changing mine (there were more of mine at any given stage). Dahn 17:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I just remembered some books by Furio Jesi in my library, and consulted them. Furio Jesi,(a leading Italian expert on mythology and right wing culture, and prof.of German literature at the University of Palermo before his death) in his Cultura di destra, Garzanti 1979 pp.38-49 translates (p.38)from Dosarul Mircea Eliade., Toladot. Buletinul Istitutului Dr.J.Niemirower n.1 Jan-March 1972 p.24 the anti-Semitic quotation (used by Bellow in Ravelstein, by the way) from Buna Vestire (17 Dec.1937), translating 'stirpe' for what the present page here gives as 'nation'. Now 'stirpe' in Italian is stronger than 'nation/nazione' in that, while with the latter it refers to 'birth, lineage', the basic sense is 'stock' as in a racial blood-line or stock.Perhaps the Rumanian text ought to be controlled on this. Niemirover's dossier was compiled to embarrass Gershom Scholem for having contributed to a Festschrift in Eliade's honour (J.M.Kitagawa and C.H.Long (eds.) Myths and Symbols in Honour of Mircea Eliade, Universoty of Chicago Press,1969)Nishidani 13:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. The original uses "neam", and the translation is mine. The term is relatively ambiguous, and I tended to translate it as "kin". However, it also commonly refers to "nation" (albeit mostly done in nationalist contexts), so I did not want to impose a reduction of its meaning. Given the precedent you note, I'm going to change it to "kin" here as well. I think that "kin" is better than "stock", since its original meaning is in reference to family relations (a meaning it still keeps in wordings like "neam cu mine" - "a relative of mine"). But I may be wrong, in which case feel free to correct me. Thank you. (I am not sure if you know Romanian; I don't want to exclude the possibility that you do, and neither do I want to assume, so apologies if this explanation is redundant.) Dahn 17:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No I don't know Roumanian, though I can read a fair amount of it, since I know Latin and several languages and dialects derived from it. The original quotation in question was not hard to follow, but niceties of use pass me by. As to the earlier point. I don't trust myself to interfere in your collaborative work here, since I might muck it up, and only cause you to have to reposition whatever I contribute. Anyone is free to examine, manage, edit, quote sources I cite, if it fits the development of the page. If anything I note here serves that purpose, I would be delighted that some of you found it useful.Regards Nishidani 17:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I added a bit of what you so generously presented here. Please check for accuracy and proper phrasing. I think more details from Kirk should go in the related Eternal return (Eliade), but that is for you and Phatius to decide (I'm clearly the neophyte in this context). I also think that a sentence on the case made by Jesi (or, rather, the issue reflected in his essay) should make its way into the article - but I assume that the work details more than this particular case (and could therefore be used for more than that).

Generally, I tend to either use works that I myself have had full access to or had the relevant parts summarized, or that mention the topic in passing. That way, I can be sure that the authors' point was not arbitrarily sectioned, and it looks good to cite much from a source that says much. As a side note, I'm dissatisfied that this article only cites Eliade's Autobiography once (and for a detail that is of minimal importance), when it could be a source for many, many things. Using google books for that would be inconsistent, and I do not have access to the entire book (let alone the edition cited), but only to criticism of parts of it through Ornea and others.

I also have a suggestion: it is possible to illustrate this article with supporting material already available, but I am not sure how orthodox this would be. What I had in mind was, for example, topping the "Shamanism" section with an image such as this one or this one (or both). Next to the mention of Moses and the sacred space, we could have an image of Moses of the prophet taking off his shoes - the most iconic one is, I'm guessing, the Ravenna mosaic (I have searched for the image on Wikimedia Commons, but it does not seem to be there). Thoughts? Dahn 19:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn That is a very sensible procedure, to give priority to written materials, available in libraries. So much of wiki material comes from secondary net sources that are in turn unreliable, so that many articles in here, written only by those who use search engines, are, to say the least, odd.

As to the autobiography, I have in my own library

-Les Promesses d'équinoxe: Mémoire 1, 1907-1937 traduit du roumain par Constantin S-Grigoresco, nrf Gallimard Paris 1980
-Fragments d'un journal, Nrf Gallimard Paris, 1973 tr.Luc Badesco
-Fragments d'un Journal, 1970-1978' tr.C.Grigoresco, Nrf Gallimard Paris,1981.

which makes for roughly 1,450 pages. I have marked and annotated all three, but read them when they came out. It would take some time to review them all and retrieve material. But if you ask me specific things, I'll look for them. I give you both a brief account of material from Jesi in the next few days, a summary and quotes.

(2) as to shaman materials,(a)chamansiberiano.jpg 336 x 672 pixels - 40.3kB webpages.ull.es/users/.../s1cham.html or (b) noll.jpg

200 x 281 pixels - 27.7kB www.desales.edu/default.aspx?pageid=1610 (just put 'tungus shaman' in yahoo search and then click on 'images' and you will get both), look more appropriate. I can't recall the specific image in Ravenna, though Ive been to most churches there, so can't help in that regard. Let me know apropos the Diary what you would be interested in seeing checked, and I'll try to do so.Nishidani 20:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What I had in mind was adding generic detail about his life (for example, backing the info already present - stuff on his childhood, exile etc.); we could use this to back up citations already present (it would be weird to have citations from Eliade's Autobiography as rendered in other sources and cite the Autobiography itself as a source on other facts; whereas having the quotes from two sources could only better this article). On the other hand, you could go through just one of the works you cite and add relevant details on various issues, at your convenience.

There is another possibility that we can explore. At some point, I added detail on what Eliade is known to have hidden about his past or to have simply embellished. This was sourced from Ornea, who compared various autobiographical texts by Eliade with facts stated by other sources, pointing that Eliade could not have been right (for example, I expanded a bit on Eliade's claim to have been picked up by the authorities because they selected his name from among contributors to a certain newspaper, when in fact Premier Călinescu is documented to have singled him out as a propagandist for the Guard). These details were removed, citing a wiki policy (namely, WP:UNDUE). I did not persist, although I objected to the interpretation at the time, and instead summarized the general idea as "Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims." Now, and this is where it gets tricky, I could re-add text elaborating on this part of the controversy, if the other editors (you included) agree that it may be relevant to do so. I could list them on this talk page as a preliminary step, and, given that Ornea cites Eliade, we can trace Eliade's original statements as well, and put your sources to yet another use.

I could not find the first picture you mention, but the second one does not appear to be public domain or fair use, so I'm afraid it cannot be uploaded. If a more Tungusic is what you would prefer, Commons has this to offer. Any good?

The Ravenna Moses image can be seen here (note that this picture too is not public domain). Dahn 21:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn, the Moses, etc. pictures are a good idea. I'll leave adding them up to you, though.

Nishidani, Dahn is 100% right: that Kirk quote about Eliade applying Australian Dreamtime concepts to Greek and Amerindian myths is perfect for Eternal return (Eliade). I notice you also added a brief summary of it to Mircea Eliade. Presumably, the summary should be slightly longer and more in-depth in Eternal return (Eliade), since Eternal return (Eliade) is more focussed that specific topic. The Kirk summary should go in the "Criticism" section, added onto an already-existing paragraph about Kirk's criticisms of the eternal return. Again, I'll leave that up to you for now - although I'll swing back for some minor editing after you're done.

Sounds good?

By the way, can either of you get your hands on a book called Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion by Bryan S. Rennie? I think it actually provides a comeback to some of Kirk's complaints. (Or maybe I read that somewhere else.) At any rate, it's a first-class analysis of Eliade's ideas. (It also discusses Eliade's anti-reductionist attitudes.) I should be able to find it in about a month, once I'm back at college; but I'm just letting you know about it if you're interested. --Phatius McBluff 22:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll add the shaman image for now, and attempt to find one of Moses taking off his shoes. Expanding on the Kirk quote in the related article is exactly my suggestion, and I'm glad we agree on this as well. There is little chance I can get my hands on Rennie's book, though. Dahn 23:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Some other to dos

In the future, we should find detail on his wife (wives?) and his cause of death. I know it sounds trivial, but this article is going places, and, generally, articles are only considered complete when they have this sort of data. Though it is not half as trivial as what that I can source in a minute of so, about the adolescent Eliade eating bugs as a means to exercise his willpower and other such stuff :) - although they were published by a reliable source, and though some of them feature in his own works, they are most likely unencyclopedic.

A section on his fiction works. I've been meaning to work on it for a while now, but needed some thorough critical material. What I have handy is the short version of George Călinescu's history of Romanian literature, which I have used on various articles in the past. Alas, for all its importance, Călinescu's volume is rather hostile to Eliade, and fails to offer a coherent overview of Eliade's contributions. It could be very helpful, but it needs to be compared with another such analysis. I did find one in Eugen Lovinescu, who, incidentally, was rather sympathetic to Mircea Eliade (this is probably because Eliade was a modernist and urbane in his selection of settings). I do not own Lovinescu's book, but will do my best to find it and use it).

Since I brought this up: where should the section on his fiction go? Do we follow chronology, and thus place it above the Scholar section, or do we guide ourselves by overall importance and move it before Controversy? I think both could work just as well, so I'll let you guys decide. Dahn 23:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

These suggestions are fine by me. The text ideally should be succinct, but detailed. I see no reason why Eliade's eating bugs to strengthen his willpower can't go in. The German saw runs: 'Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail". God is in the details, and not infrequently one understands more from an anecdote like that about a man that what a whole dreary biography will tell you. Dr.Johnson once got into a carriage where a lady was already seated, and she said 'Sir! You smell!" He quipped back, 'No Madam, you smell: I stink." In that one short scene, inimitably evoked with laconic humour, you have his ungainliness, untidiness, failure to wash, his lack of raw offence, since wit saved him: his brilliant sense for the nuances of the language. His irony, his self-deprecation never undermining his sense of merit. His sympathy for the underdog of which he was one for a long time, against the fastidious pretensions of a class cushioned from want, and ready to make the underclass feel the sting of their poverty by unnecessary rebuke.

I think a full section on his fiction would be wonderful. 'Under scholarship' perhaps, and before 'Eliade in fiction??. Brief synopses of novels in chronological order are required to fill out the life. I've always desired to read the novels, but have never chanced on any translation of them. I suspect there is more of Eliade in them, than in his technical books.

Whether sources are sympathetic or not to Eliade shouldn't worry us. All we should do is have our eyes on the quality of the information purveyed. One can dislike Eliade and much of his work, and still find it highly suggestive and useful (if only at times for the footnotes!)

We've no need to hurry. Each in his own time. Nishidani 12:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Dahn, in my opinion, his fiction should go after his scholarship. It may have come first chronologically, but most people are probably interested in scholarship when they read an article on a dead professor. --Phatius McBluff 20:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both, and sorry for the delay in replying. As suggested, I added the bio details I could source into the text (loved the Johnson story and comparison, btw), and will do so for the "fiction" part in due time (indeed, there is no need to hurry). And, of course, I'll do it in the place both of you suggested.

To tie some loose ends: the exact problem with Călinescu is not that it is critical, but that it is so to the detriment of his own narrative. It is easy to discern what he thinks about Eliade's work in general, but the arguments about the books themselves are too scattered and inconsistent for that book alone to give an overall image of Eliade's work (as opposed to quoting its verdicts among those of others). For comparison, Ornea (who is a source here) is at times very critical of Eliade, but he also constructs full arguments and presents events as they unfold (abundantly quoting Eliade while at it). Also for comparison, Lovinescu discusses Eliade's style and themes before stating what his opinion of them is. In the end, I would want to cite as many such important interpretations as possible - but, alas, the overview is harder to find than the opinions. Dahn 20:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Some stuff I found

I found these Romanian-language links which provide good detail, biographical as well as (in some cases) theoretical. The info is intertwined, and needs to be added to more than one section, and I have not looked through them thoroughly. I'm posting them here because I plan to use them soon, and this is the best place to pick them up from.

• [7], [8], [9] (quite complicated, but very interesting)
• [10] (with comments: [11], [12], and the one moved from below)
• [13]
• [14] (p. 28, and perhaps p.23 as well)
• [15] (p.169 of the doc)
• [16]

This Spanish translation from Culianu also caught my eye (I think it is Eliade's obituary). Dahn 10:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Dahn, I'm almost completely in the dark when it comes to Eliade's biography. I know some vague outlines, but helping you with the biography sections would mean basically absorbing all the stuff you already know to be able to then get at meatier issues. I wouldn't mind doing something of the sort, but I probably won't be working on this article for a while; I'm currently focusing my attention on the Christian mythology article. However, if you'd like me to give some help with spellcheck, advice on organization, etc., I'll be happy to lend an ear. Just let me know. --Phatius McBluff 17:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you got me wrong. The first thing is that these bio details are new to me as well. I posted them here because they clarify stuff this article needs, and they come in handy - I could've saved them on my computer, but that way I could not have used them from a different one (or I would've had to search them again). I will soon add them to the article, and I would indeed appreciate any copyedit from you (with thanks in advance) or anyone else.

Another thing is that at least one of the sources can potentially add a bit to the scholar section - which would most likely warrant your critical eye, as well as that of Nishidani, once I add the info. This is not only because the source is in Romanian, and not only because I am the novice here, but also because you can tell best how and where it should go in the text (if at all). The best way is for me to add them, and you to decide if it should stay.

Also, at least one source gives some detail on his literature. It does look important, but it cannot supplement an overview. In essence, I think it is easiest for me to add all the info at once (or in a tight succession of edits), together with something substantial on his fiction. Very much like I did in my original edits on the biography section.

More detail of the above qualifies as an additional view to list in the controversy section - we have an assessment by his nephew and biographer, Sorin Alexandrescu, in which he takes the middle ground. Basically, he says that Eliade was a fascist, but claims to be able to prove that he discarded this view during his stay in Portugal, as some sort of epiphany. I'm not sure exactly how important this POV is, and I'm going to have to check exactly how notable Alexandrescu is, but it may deserve inclusion. Dahn 18:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, in my opinion, the most important question isn't how notable Ale````xandrescu was in a general sense; the most important question is how notable he was to Eliade, and what position he was in to make claims about Eliade's personal beliefs. If I want to know whether Eliade believed in flying pigs, I'll take his stepfather's word over a professional historian's any day. Given that he's Eliade's nephew, he's a notable biographer regardless of whatever else he may be. His claim that he suddenly changed his view of Eliade may be nonsense, but it's still a notable claim, given who he is.

Also, thanks for clearing that up for me. I admit that I haven't even looked at the sources you posted yet: I've been busy on other articles. You say, "The best way is for me to add them, and you to decide if it should stay." That sounds like it would work best for me. Like I said, I'm sorta in the middle of some other Wikipedia work right now, and it's diverting a lot of my daily "computer time"; but I do have Mircea Eliade on my watchlist, so I'll immediately know when you add anything to the sections on Eliade's scholarship.

Out of curiosity, are we talking about more material on Eliade's specific theories, or are we talking about interpretations of Eliade's methods, underlying conceptual framework, etc.? There's a lot of the former and precious little of the latter in the article. That's a shame, because one could glean most of the former simply by skimming Eternal return (Eliade). While Eliade's repetitious writing style makes it obvious what his major theoretical claims are, there's some disagreement over exactly what Eliade meant by "hierophany", "the sacred", etc., and exactly how (or if) it all fits together into a coherent system. Also, subjects such as Eliade's "unempirical" and "anti-reductionist" attitudes deserve more discussion. --Phatius McBluff 21:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Er, perhaps I spoke too quickly. Just being Eliade's nephew obviously doesn't make Alexandrescu competent to discuss Eliade. If Alexandrescu never met his uncle, then he wouldn't have much of an advantage over a any other scholar in determining Eliade's views. What I meant to say was that Alexandrescu's published views about Eliade probably deserve at least a one-sentence summary, given that he was Eliade's nephew. --Phatius McBluff 22:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Those were exactly my concerns. I did a little more looking into, and Alexandrescu is apparently not a (for lack of a better analogy) William Patrick Hitler, but a professor at the University of Amsterdam, and a respected literary historian. The interview linked above indicates that he he researched Eliade's Portuguese Diary, and drew conclusions on it. In fact, I also found an article by another respected journalist (and political scientist), which is rather critical of Alexandrescu's conclusions, while explicitly praising his scholarly status. So this dialog may be worth a couple of lines.

The other (three-part) article discusses Eliade's contribution to "mythocriticism" (sic - I'm not sure how accepted this term is, but perhaps it has an equivalent).Addition: the article indicates that another term is preferred by Anglo-Saxons, and this should be, afaict Archetypal literary criticism I came across it because I searched for info on his wife (and a short section of it mentions her for some reason that is not clear to me yet). Iulian Băicuş, interestingly, seems to be the person who signed a currently-archived comment on this very page (as "Mayuma" - see his rowiki user page); it is just now that I realize it. He is an assistant professor at the University of Bucharest, and the magazine is the main literary publication in Moldova. It is an interesting piece, which crosses into two territories (Eliade's theories and his fiction works), seemingly focused on commentary. It also seems to be an original and innovative interpretation, so, with all due respect to Mr. Băicuş, I would not want to overexpose it (for fear of WP:UNDUE). I will try to summarize its main point(s) about Eliade, use the basic info the article provides, and, hopefully, I'll not be misrepresenting his position. Such situations tend to be delicate, especially when dealing with a delicate subject such as Eliade. I am also sure that Mr. Băicuş, if he is reading this, can summarize his own points best, or quickly correct me in case I should err. To answer your exact question: prima facie, it seems to be an interpretation of his concepts, drawing some parallels with the work of other Romanian and international authors.

I must stress again that I truly respect your contributions to wikipedia, and you are at liberty to prioritize your interest in other areas. As Nishidani pointed out, there is no sense of urgency involved here, and I myself am also involved in quite different areas as we speak. I'll also leave decision on the theoretical aspects to you and Nishidani, at your convenience, and will accept if any of my future edits in that area are rephrased or dropped altogether. This is just to clarify that the only certain merit of my contributions would be that they could build a bridge between foreign and Romanian scholarship, which, on principle (and perhaps only on principle) can eventually make this article one of the most thorough ones to have ever existed. Dahn 22:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding to my last comment: I noted in the past that there seem to be very different images of Eliade in Romanian and Western discourse respectively, in both the negative and positive aspects. This means that scholars insist on viewing Eliade from different perspectives, and communicate to different publics. For all the post-1989 dialog between the two cultures, it seems that this is still the case. This may help explain why it is rather difficult to discuss the two sources at once - I'm not an expert, but it may be that the common elements between your fine additions to the text and a random text from a random Romanian source have to be searched intensely (whereas that random Romanian source may elaborate on issues that were never brought up west of Budapest). Dahn 23:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

There are also other things I came upon in the article that discusses Alexandrescu. Albeit not especially polemical, it does expose some, shall we say, inconvenient statements Eliade produced in his diaries (with direct citations). It thus becomes apparent that Eliade declared himself a genius greater than Goethe, but, almost at the same time, dismissed his own literary works as "stuff for high school students and little ladies". Eliade also proclaims himself a major philosopher - this may or may not be the case as far as neutrality goes, but Mr. Avramescu, the author of the article in question, equates this with a mathematician proclaiming himself a great soccer player. The piece features yet another perspective on the political controversy: in Mr. Avramescu's opinion, which he bases on his reading of the diary, Eliade's contacts with the Iron Guard were indeed hard to define, but this is because Eliade was opposed to the movement's Christian themes (this is, I'm guessing, backed by the "in any direction other than spirituality" quote in Ornea) and, at the time, considered himself a Nazi - with the paganism this implies.

I'm asking you guys: how much of this should make it in the text? The opinion expressed on his political beliefs seems both relevant and competent, but the other stuff is arguably just competent (and I would not know where to add in the text). Eliade's verdict of his own novels and short stories could also make it in the future section on his literature. A debate between the two authors about whether Eliade and Ortega y Gasset were friends (says Alexandrescu) or were not (says Avramescu) is probably trivial. As a side note: Avramescu does quote Eliade himself indicating that they only met twice, and strongly disagreed with each other, while stressing that, in this and other instances, Alexandrescu "reads one thing and records another" (or, to paraphrase more accurately the obscure Romanian mot he uses, "reads John and writes down Basil"). Dahn 23:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I know I said I was busy with other articles, but this discussion is becoming too interesting to ignore.

Eliade's statements about his novels, etc.-- I think any info on Eliade's own opinions about his work should take precedence over what other scholars say: even if Eliade's pronouncements about himself were complete nonsense, they would still be Eliade's own statements. The more of them you can add, the better.

"Eliade also proclaims himself a major philosopher [...] Mr. Avramescu, the author of the article in question, equates this with a mathematician proclaiming himself a great soccer player." This made me laugh. And it is, I think, true. Eliade's aspirations to philosophical recognition are obvious from reading his scholarly works on myth. He's the only mythologist I've read who feels the need to inject the words "existential" and "ontology" into discussions of Near Eastern fertility goddesses. Please add everything you can find about Eliade's philosophical interests: they're highly relevant to his scholarship (or at least his writing style), and they were obviously important to him. I'd prioritize this over adding more info on Eliade's politics (since we have a lot of the latter already).

Dahn, I highly recommend that you take a look at a book called Politics of Myth: A Study of C.G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell by Robert S. Ellwood. Ellwood is a professor of religion who studied under Eliade. The section of Politics of Myth on Eliade is an intriguing examination of Eliade's life and how it influenced Eliade's thought. It's relatively light on cold, hard biographical facts (it won't tell us much that we don't already have in the bio section), but it provides an interesting perspective on the relationship between Eliade's experiences, his "far right" trends, and his scholarship. (It includes some anecdotes from Eliade's childhood and youth that really blew me away when I realized how much they influenced his interpretations of myth.) Yes, it does discuss Eliade's scholarship, but only lightly, only to help the reader understand Eliade's thought as a whole. The book explores the apparent connection between a romanticized view of myth and political views. (Jung, Eliade, and Campbell all thought myths held "ancient wisdom", and they've all been accused of having reactionary political views.) Once again, I should be able to get my own hands back on this book in a few weeks, but you might want to read it. I believe the bio section has moved beyond the point where we should be focussed on piling up more and more dry biographical facts: interesting perspectives like Ellwood's should be the order of the day. --Phatius McBluff 03:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions, and I'll be following them in due time. You comments raise an interesting prospect: we could, perhaps, add a section in the "Scholarly criticism" section to refer to Eliade's claim to have also been a philosopher. This provided, of course, that more authors besides Avramescu discuss this issue (I'm going to bet they do, but I have little access to such debates). I am going to make a conscious effort to get my hands on Ellwood's book, but this may take a while. What am considering is purchasing Ţurcanu's book, which, as far as I can tell, touches on subjects present in Ellwood, as well as other themes. I fully agree that there should also be commentary on biographical data, so I'll be looking into that as well. Dahn 11:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry McPhatius and Dahn. I haven't contributed as promised. Someone is endeavouring, it strikes me, to get me banned as 'anti-semitic'!! If he succeeds, then I will withdraw from wiki. It's been busy. Cheers. Nishidani 06:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you don't mind, but I looked a bit into the controversy, and I have to say that your edits were common sense - one should prioritize administrative over historical subdivisions (for the reader's sake - the where now as opposed to the where yesterday), and, as far as I can tell, the article as you found it conveniently prioritized a settlement over the main town for political gains. The "antisemitic" charge is, at the very least given your edits there, bogus - in fact, I have to say it is a straw man argument against you. I have note been able to locate the exact statement during my brief looking into, so I must take your word that it was voiced. While you did break the letter of 3RR (and, as far as I can see, those opposing you haven't), I must insist that a warning should have been assigned instead of a block - it is common sense to ensure that a person has been informed that the rule exists and that he or she knows what it means. I don't recall having ever edited an Israel-related article, so I will not comment on this or intervene any further. But feel free to quote what I said here in your defense, if you should find it useful. Nevertheless, in case you need more clarifications regarding this position, feel free to contact me on my talk page and I shall reply on yours. I also hope you don't take the decision of leaving this project - as disheartened as you may feel about this incident, and having your insight on this page as a sample, it seems to me that you are clearly a valuable contributor. Dahn 11:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, losing you would be quite a loss. I find the 'anti-semitic' charge laughable, but frankly, I couldn't care less what your personal beliefs are; what I care about in a Wikipedian is the quality of his or her contributions and suggestions. And your contributions to and suggestions for the Eliade article have been excellent. Good luck, and don't leave! --Phatius McBluff 17:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Marriage?

Was he ever married? If not, would a "| spouse=none" line in the infobox be appropriate? Biruitorul 15:56, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

He was married twice. I was thinking of adding that in, but the sources for this info can also be used for many other topics, so I was going to add them all at once. Until then, what I could find is that his first wife was named Nina, and his second Christinel. There is a mention of Christinel's maiden name somewhere (I will look for it again), but I couldn't find a similar one for Nina. If I got it right, it seems that Nina Eliade died (when?), leaving Eliade to remarry. Christinel Eliade died in 1997. Hope this helps. Dahn 19:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Some searches have revealed that he married Nina Mareş, a divorced woman, in January 1934, also taking in her daughter Giza (perhaps adopting her?). Nina died of cancer near Lisbon on November 20, 1944. He married Christinel Cotrescu on January 9, 1950, and she died on March 9, 1998. Sources available upon request, or searching Google/Google Books. Biruitorul 19:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Some material, as promised

In his book Mito (Myth), Mondadori, Milan 1980 Furio Jesi says this pp66-70 (The second part, translation, is wooden, to stick as closely to the original. Nutted out, it is quite perceptive and suggestive for understanding the latent leitmotivs which connect structurally Eliade’s approach to the wider esoteric undercurrents of the 20s and 30s (Evola’s Hyperborean north of masculine aristocratic vigor vs the decadent effeminate south, and Nazism occultism). This stuff may not be worth anything. I place it here for your dual considerations. More will follow from Jesi’s other book, and Eliade’s diaries (French versions) when I can muster some time.

Implicit in Eliade’s chapter in the Myth of Eternal Return dealing with ‘the terror’ of history’ is the idea that man’s authentic (true) reality lies in the experience of pain and joy, not in the capacity for thought that can oppose grief/pain by political actions that battle the roots of that pain. As a consequence, Eliade does not see man as a protagonist in history, past or future, but only a protagonist in those instants wherein either joyous exaltation or suffering is manifested, and in this it is the mythic paradigm which endows man on such occasions with the power to endure, and thus diminish, the intensity of that suffering. The example is the mythic exemplar of Christ the saviour, which embued man with the power to confront the pain of historical events without excessive suffering, (by identification with the paradigmatic myth of a God who accepted suffering). This is not accompanied by moral judgements, but it is evident that in this schema, there is a tacit judgement, according to which man’s ends are not those of the good, but rather those of a spiritual vitality (the opposite of spiritual sterility) which is nurtured and reinforced by an openness to the power of myth.’pp.66-7

(2) Eliade in his works distinguishes two basic metahistorical justifications of historical events. One concerns history understood as an eternal return, forever renovating myth, the other is history understood as a series of ever new theophanies, according to the judeo-christian religious experience.

There is an important distinction here: ‘In the Jewish religious experience, the obscure (oscuro) god forming the background of mythologies came forth onto center stage, as a directly agentive (acting) force within history, and thus lost part of his obscurity, almost to the point of acquiring a recognizable aspect/face. The state of the devout before such a god approximated ever more and more to an Heraclitean ‘state of wakingness’, and their defence against the sufferings imposed by history unfolded in the identification of historical time with ‘God’s time’. Hunted forth from what Eliade defines as “the paradise of the archetypes’’, man no longer counterpointed historical time to mythical time, and abandoned the static moment (ora) of myth for the intimate dynamic of theophanies. In advancing Christianity as the only religion capable of saving modern man from the pain of history, Eliade does not offer us an optimistic message. In his argument, the archetypes are indeed the lost paradise from which man is by now precluded/shut off: a paradise access to which required a ‘particular metaphysical valorisation of human existence’ consisting in the recognition of the human faculty of standing at the point where life and death intersect with each other. In consigning a value to this faculty, Eliade has in mind particularly man’s openness to the space of death that lies within life, and towards the flux of myth – an openness (receptivity) that almost wholly disappears, in his view, in the Judeo-christian religious world. The time of myth can therefore be said to be, for Eliade, the moment of death, in so far as it represents the eternity with which being human is commingled. It (myth= is a profound refuge, a secret room, where the spirit touches base with its proper reality and comes to know the perennial forms that are capable of harmonizing the objective and subjective: the archetypes. In the sphere of ‘mythological religions’’, myth does not imply an authentic participation in metaphysics, understood as a direct relationship with the hidden/obscure god, and, that is, with the unknown divine force which, to the eyes of the modern observer, glimmers beyond from the horizon of myth.’

Fascinating. I think much of this could be usefully incorporated into this (and some other) articles. However, this will require some consideration and looking back over articles.... I'll get back to you. Thanks for this! --Phatius McBluff 18:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

If you do find some of the stuff I put in here useful, tell me what points specifically, and I will give you the page number, and if you want it, the Italian text. The translation was very hurried, almost a paraphrase, but the content is as above.Hang on till I summarize his other book which has several pages, perhaps tomorrow at earliest. Cheers Nishidani 19:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Dahn

Have begun to reread the page, and noted in para 1, that among the languages Eliade had a reading knowledge of, Russian is not included. But in Shamanism he cites quite a few Russian sources, Tretyakov,Anisimov, Anokhin, Popov etc etc. as well as Swedish and Hungarian sources (the latter, the important work of Dioszegi). With the Swedish source he properly refers to the secondary report from which he gained his information. With Dioszegi, he properly relied on summaries D.supplied in his Russian and Germany articles. I always thought that Eliade read Russian sources, since he footnotes them directly?Nishidani 08:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't possibly tell you - the sentence was in the article way back when I found it, and users have played with it in various ways since. From my part, it is not certain that he knew any language in particular, since no sources I used in this article actually discuss that aspect of his biography (though, of course, it would be absurd to argue that he didn't know at least one foreign language). I admit I have not looked into this at all, and I wouldn't know where to start. What you say makes sense, but it is also [remotely] possible that he had someone summarizing the texts for him. Dahn 22:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Mister Dahn wrote:"Evola for example, did put out an edition of the notorious Tzarist forgery The Protocols of Zion" Since I 'm reading it in various discussions I want to precise this information isn't correct: The "Protocols of Zion" were edited by Giovanni Preziosi, and published by "La Vita Italiana" (directed and founded by Preziosi), Evola just wrote an introduction to the first italian edition of the text (1921).

Ialkarn

It was not I who wrote that (it was Nishidani), but I do see your point. This was, as you yourself seem to indicate, a side note, not specifically relevant to this article - though it may be useful in another article. Dahn 22:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I misread the date from the note cited in the volume by Evola, transferring it to Preziosi's text from another book Evola alludes to in the same note. My apologies. I didn't write that Evola put out an edition. That was how I found the text, as far as I remember. I merely clarified what Evola thought about the Protocols, by citing what he wrote in 1937. I have revisited the text, and slightly adjusted to take in the information about Preziosi's book's date. This of course is matter to be discussed on the Evola page.Nishidani 22:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is, I wrote there about it already, thanks for the correction about the date of the introduction, which is linked with the last version (1937) and not the first one (1921), as I stated wrong previously. by Ialkarn

Nishidani's material and some other points

Bad news, Nishidani. I looked back over that Jesi passage you posted, and I'm not sure how I could usefully incorporate it into the article. It's basically talking about how the Abrahamic religions adopted linear, historical time -- which is already covered in the article.

There might be one way I could use this material, however. The Jesi passage discusses Eliade's attitude toward religion in addition to his theories about religion. For instance, the passage notes that Eliade regards "Christianity as the only religion capable of saving modern man from the pain of history" (because Christianity embraces linear, historical time), and that he sees "man’s ends [...] not [as] those of the good, but rather those of a spiritual vitality (the opposite of spiritual sterility) which is nurtured and reinforced by an openness to the power of myth". It would be a stretch to include such statements in the "scholar" section, considering that Eliade's profession was as a historian: it's more quasi-theology or quasi-psychology than a theory of religious history.

Therefore, Dahn, do you think it's a good idea to create a new section about "Eliade's philosophy of religion"? A little while ago, we discussed the possibility of addressing Eliade's philosophical aspirations. This could be a useful first step. When Eliade makes claims about how modern man's historical time leads to a spiritual sterility, etc., he shades much farther into philosophy than into science/history. (Basically, he sounds like a philosophically souped-up version of PBS's The Power of Myth series.)

I have plenty of info on Eliade's philosophical valuation of mythical thought as opposed to modern thought. I'll start there ... and we'll see where things go. You guys can help if you want, and it should be fairly easy: just find all the passages by or about Eliade that sound like Joseph Campbell on steriods. --Phatius McBluff 19:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. I may add that this would also help clarify what some critics mentioned above are talking about. The main point, however, would be to start from scholarly works that make that distinction (ie between his work as a historian and his philosophic values), so it doesn't sound like we're the ones making it (though I presume that "info on Eliade's philosophical valuation of mythical thought as opposed to modern thought" also features that distinction explicitly).

I'm mostly caught up in another project at the moment, but I'll be available for comments, and I'll eventually add to the text myself. Dahn 19:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I've looked around a bit to see if Jesi could perhaps be included as an extra citation on what we already have, with what he uses as a summary of Eliade's work. On principle, I tend to use sources for all they say, even if that is already covered in the text. However, it seems that the text structure would make this awkward and redundant. It is finely cited as it is, and directly from the source, so I fully agree with you that Jesi's own conclusions, rather than his overview, belong in the new section. Dahn 19:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Not bad news. I don't now how to evaluate the material I can access in its appropriateness or not for the article, since you chaps know this area far better than I do. I'm just chucking things your way to see if anything I come up with from my book shelves can prove useful for the article. For all I know, it may be as useful as tits on a bull. So feel free to give the thumbs down on it. I'm way behind in keeping my word to get through Jesi's other book and the diary, and apologize, but will eventually drop an extensive note on what I've found. I haven't looked at the other articles, but there are 'low sources' Guenon is the primary one, and Heidegger the other, top shelf one, for analysing the premises in Eliade's 'philosophy of history' of course. Guénon is a key link between Evola and Eliade, since both took seriously his claim that the prehistoric elites with their esoteric and elect knowledge of the mystical, died out and their recondite theories were, on one level, lost, but were nonetheless transmitted to the hoi polloi in a distorted form, and through the disiecta membra of these degraded traces in folklore and popular culture, the modern adept can reconstruct the elitist knowledge of high antiquity (like Frazer in the Golden Bough, like Eliade in his Shamanism with its Evolian dialectic between the 'hyperborean' purity of the shaman in illo tempore, a solitary technician of the magical, and the decadent contaminations of that reality in southern plebeian cultures), and use it to restore the occult reading of the world that these same masses, the unconscious agents of transmission and historical contamination, are incapable of understanding. That is the essential political content of the right-esoteric cultural-conservative temper of those times. Heidegger's concept of historical post-Socratic time as an errant vagrancy from Being shares the same assumption, but unfolds its logic at an extremely refined level of discourse that dissembles the patent analogy with the esoteric world of aristocratic cultism flourishing in Germany's Wilhelminian and Weimarian subcultures.

I don't know how the scholarship on this stands, but Phatius, particularly, you could do well to relook at the Sartre/Lévi-Strauss debate on history (La penséee sauvage 1962, last chapter, which is profitable for understanding some of the paradoxes in Eliade's position, once seen in retrospect in terms of structuralism's latter battle against marxist historicity.

Don't feel at any rate any obligation to 'place' what I throw in here. Sorry for this rushed note. It's late and I'm three sheets to the wind from convivial boozing.Regards to you both. Nishidani 22:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

New section added

Don't worry, Nishidani. I won't feel like I have to put your info in the article. However, your Jesi passage came in handy to reference a few sentences in a new section I added on Eliade's "philosophy of religion". Dahn, Nishidani, please glance over the new section and tell me what you think. Dahn will probably want to condense a few passages here and there; and in this case, I say, "Go ahead!" I wrote that section without thinking up an outline first, so it ended up being a bit long and free-wheeling. Right now, I don't have the energy to do a bunch of nit-picky editing of it. Maybe later... --Phatius McBluff 23:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Have reread, too rapidly perhaps, the article (overwhelmed by work here), and I think it should be blessed with a new assessment. It seems, from what little I understand of these things, to be very close to A grade class. A few quick remarks. One on the terror of history. I think it has been remarked that Eliade ignores Durkheim, but his imprint is frequent. On religion and suffering,(the point is not new to D of course. One could talk at length of 19th century studies of peripateia in Greek ritual and drama, the reversal from suffering to joy in mythic identifications by initiates with the god etc.), Durkheim wrote in his classic:-

'Le fidèle qui a communié avec son dieu n'est pas seulement un homme qui voit des vérités nouvelles que l'incroyant ignore.. Il sent en lui plus de force soit pour supporter les difficultés de l'existence soit pour les vaincre. Il est comme élévé au-dessus de sa condition d'homme; il se croit sauvé du mal.' (The person of faith who has been in communication with his god is not only a man who sees new truths of which the disbeliever is unaware . .He feels within more strength, both to bear up with the difficulties of existence and to overcome them. It is as if he were raised up and above his human condition; he believes that he has been rescued from evil.) Durkheim, Les formnes élémentaires de la vie religieuse'(1912) Presses universitaires de France, 1968 p.595 etc. (2) A lot of what Eliade says about reliving via myth, the past, recalls Malinowski’s several accounts of the creative mimesis of the legendary past in his Trobriand island monographs. Sorry to be brief. Finest regardsNishidani 21:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Eliade probably stole from Durkheim. Unfortunately, as I mentioned somewhere above, I could find only one source that discusses this:

"Mircea Eliade travesties Durkheim in The Sacred & The Profane (1957) by ignoring completely his fundamental contribution to the study of the sacred. Durkheim had made the sacred - profane dichotomy a central theme of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), [1] but Eliade passes over this in total silence, leaving you to suppose he is himself first in the field, with no previous account to consider."[17]

This is almost certainly correct, from what I've heard. However, the guy who made that website doesn't have any credentials, as far as I can see. And, as we all know, anyone can put up a website.

Actually, Eliade directly quotes Malinowski in Myth and Reality when he's discussing the "function" of myths:

"I cannot conclude this chapter better than by quoting the classic passages in which Bronislav Malinoski undertook to show the nature and function of myth in primitive societies.

"'Studied alive, myth ... is not an explanation in satisfaction of a scientific interest, but a narrative resurrection of a primeval reality, told in satisfaction of deep religious wants, moral cravings, social submissions, assertions, even practical requirements. Myth fulfills in primitive culture an indispensable function: it expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual and contains practical rules for the guidance of man. Myth is thus a vital ingredient of human civilisation; it is not an idle tale, but a hard-worked active force; it is not an intellectual explanation or an artistic imagery, but a pragmatic charter of primitive faith and moral wisdom. ... These stories ... are to the natives a statement of a primeval, greater, and more relevant reality, by which the present life, fates and activities of mankind are determined, the knowledge of which supplies man with the motive for ritual and moral actions, as well as with indications of how to perform them'"(pp. 19-20).

There's an obvious parallel between Eliade's idea of myth as a vehicle for "eternal return" to the primeval age, and Malinowski's idea of myth as a "narrative resurrection of a primeval reality". Unfortunately, if I stated that "Eliade's theory of eternal return was influenced by Malinowski", that would be "original research".

Perhaps we could make a section in the Eternal return (Eliade) article for "Similar academic conceptions of myth and ritual". We could put the Malinowski quote there, along with a quote I found from Joseph Campbell:

"The mythological image, the mythological formula, is rendered present, here and now, in the rite. Just as the written formula, E = mc², here on this page, is not merely a reference to the formula that Dr. Einstein wrote on another piece of paper somewhere else, but actually that formula itself, so likewise are the motifs of the rite experienced not as references but as presences. They render visible the mythological age itself. For the [religious] festival is an extension into the present of the world-creating mythological event through which the force of the ancestors (those eternal ones of the dream) became discharged into the rolling run of time" (The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, pp. 179-80).

That way, we wouldn't be explicitly stating that Eliade was "influenced" by those quotes, or that those quotes were "influenced" by Eliade: we would just be pointing out the parallel. --Phatius McBluff 03:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The additional information seems quite good. The only real major objection I have is the repeated rephrasing ("in other words ...", etc.). Maybe it would work best to just make the rephrased statement in the article, and include the exact quote in the note, if at all. John Carter 20:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I reworded to remove the recurrence of "in other words...", and tidied things up slightly. --Phatius McBluff 19:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll be going dark

Hey Dahn and company--

Sorry I haven't followed through with those books I said I'd consult for the Eliade article. I can certainly access them, but I'm back in college now, and everything's been so hectic that I haven't had time to think much about Wikipedia. Dahn, I notice that you recently made numerous revisions to the Eliade article. I didn't have time to look through them all, but your editing of the sections on his scholarship seem fine.

Anyway, this is just to let you know I probably won't be doing much with the Eliade article for a while. I still have some things I intend to work on, but they'll have to wait till later. --Phatius McBluff 17:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying, Phatius. I too keep postponing the additions I promised, but I'll soon look for more essential material on his literary output. All in due time, and hope to see you back soon. Dahn 18:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Rabinovich

I take issue with the deletion of the references to Yakov Rabinovich's work from the legacy section of this article. Rabinovich, whose works are available online and may be easily consulted through the links which were deleted with the references, has in fact systematically applied Eliade's archetypalism in two books, "Faces of God" and "The Rotting Goddess." The removal of these legitimate references was an act of vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.245.176 (talk) 22:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

There are no references in any serious context that would group the two of them in one sentence or paragraph - neither secondary, tertiary or, hell, primary. To be fair, there is one .ru site which, I see from the caption, yields a "Rabinovich Eliade", but I cannot check to see if it's the Rabinovich in question, given that Firefox tells me it is detrimental to my computer's health. Furthermore, Mr. Rabinovich appears not to satisfy any notability guideline, and the only one of his works I was able to find online appears to have nothing to with either Eliade or scholarly literature, but rather with bloggery. Furthermore, what was removed were not "references" (as opposed to this), but a large paragraph advertising Rabinovich. Wikipedia is not a soapbox and not a blog. Dahn 16:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: I also see the IP who signed the comment above has been pushing references from Rabinovich under the name "Rabinowitz" into several other articles. Well, users seem to have convened to have them removed in at least one article, and all the arguments against this source are to be found here. There is little left to say. Dahn 06:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I am Yakov Rabinovich. The objections to my work are not pertinent to the articles from which I have been excised, or to Wikipedia's criteria. I note:

I changed the spelling of my name from Jacob Rabinowitz to Yakov Rabinovich, and so I am now know in my publications and in my public appearances. I updated references to my work in Wikipedia as to spelling, for the convencience of readers.

I am not the same Jacob Rabinowitz who wrote the works of Talmudic Law, with whom I am confused in the list of my publications in the Ebionites discussion. I did write some poems about Canaanite gods which a friend published on her website. I do not see however that writing poetry, even bad poetry, should score against my credibility as a scholar. I did recieve my doctorate in Classics from Brown.

The links to my works are not to the website that holds them, but direct connections to the PDF files of the books cited. "The Rotting Goddess" has been reissued as part of a collection of my writings on the ancient world, "Junkyard of the Classics. The website in question, by the by, offers all of my work, as well as that of a number of other authors, living and dead, without charge, as PDF files. This kind of not-for-profit public service is not correctly characterized as self promotion or a "blog."

The number of factual errors in the way I have been characterized should alone suffice to reopen the question of my inclusion.

As to Eliade. I have systematically applied his theory of the archetypes in two books, "The Rotting Goddess" and "Faces of God" (This latters is now included in the collection of my writings on Judaism, "Stairway to Nowhere", and accessible without charge (like all my other works) at the Invisible Books website.

Eliade's archetypalism is, in its simplest description, the idea that there are groups of concepts and images that naturally appear together in human religious conceptions. Like the Moon, which brings with it ideas of cycle, death and rebirth, and which is represented in associated images such as circular shells, mazes, and water. Eliade himself used his archetypes, set forth encuclopaedically in his "Patterns in Comparative Religion," only to describe archaic religions. I applied his ideas to the study of Biblical Prophecy, and the mythology of Witchcraft.

Eliade's proteges did not emply his methodology (E.g., Wendy Doniger promptly declared for Structuralism). Eliade's main contemporary advocate, Brian Rennie, concerns himself with Eliade's politics, and does not not the interesting fact that Eliade has no successors in the path he spent a lifetime mapping out.

I have indeed systematically, though not uncritically, applied Eliade's ideas in a number of books, (including "Buried Angels," though there only in the final chapter where I analyze the symbolism of the archaeological finds). Since I am the only scholar to have done so, I think I deserve a mention in an article that seriously addresses Eliade's legacy.

As a final note, I am shocked to hear in Wikipeidia the criterion of "notability" invoked. The appeal to authority is not actually an argument, though it often prevails. I would ask fair-minded persons to consult —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.245.176 (talk) 19:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't really understand how all this works. The continuation of the note should have been:

There is more. I am shocked to hear in Wikipeidia the criterion of "notability" invoked. The appeal to authority is not actually an argument, though it often prevails. I would ask fair-minded persons to consult

http://www.invisiblebooks.com/stairprepress.pdf

go to page 197, the beginning of the chapter on the symbolism of the center in Biblical literature. If you know of anyone who has applied the Eliadean archetypes as a tool of research as I have, I shall be very grateful to hear who this is.

Finally, I take exception to the characterization of my work as "scholarship lite." I am at pains to express my findings, however complex, in clear and simple language, considering the interests of the educated non-specialist, who wishes to be entertained as well as instructed. What makes it possible to fairly and easily evaluate my work (as I invite you all to) is not a point against my seriousness.

But I leave it to you. I have not the time to get into the trenches and duke it out with you all. I have written this much because I think well of Wikipedia, not least because it does not seem unimaginative and pedantic like the academic encyclopedias, which, if they tell nothing untrue, also never tell us anything new.

69.136.245.176 19:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC) I believe these tildes are a signature? Y.R.

You have just confirmed why the addition was self promotional material, and why it went against several other criteria (such as reliable sources, notability and neutrality). For one, there are no reliable sources concerning your interest, your expertise or even discussing your work, Mr. Rabinovich. Wikipedia editors don't generate reality, they record it. As far as I am concerned, the material is not suited and the discussion around it is over. Dahn 19:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

So I was talking to a friend...

...and she mentioned that she came to this article looking for information about Eliade as an author of fiction and found that, as far as that aspect of his work, it might as well be a stub. I've never read any of his fiction, but she tells me that he was a good enough fiction writer that he'd be a pretty important writer if he'd done nothing else. In general, she's someone whose literary judgment I trust, so I presume she is correct.

My ignorance here is pretty thoroughgoing, so I have nothing to bring to the article on this front myself, but could someone who knows his work add a relevant section? - Jmabel | Talk 07:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I qualify as one of the people who know his work (I just know some of his work), but I'm more or less working on this myself. From my part, I'll come up with something based on critical commentary by New Years'. Dahn (talk) 09:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Just popping in again. I will be in no position to seriously edit this article until I get off on Winter Break. (I'm a college student.) But I'd be glad to look into his fiction writing (I'm not promising I will.) I think the problem is that the contributors to this article are mainly familiar with Eliade's academic work, so we tend to think of Eliade solely as an academic. Yes, perhaps we should look into Eliade's fiction-writing. But it would be even better if we could get someone who's already studied Eliade's ficting to work on this article. Maybe we could post a notice on the talk page of some Wikipedia project related to literature, asking if anyone can help with this article. Just a thought. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have access to two works by the leading Romanian literary historians George Călinescu and Eugen Lovinescu, and some of the links above also detail some aspects of his literature. It's going to take a while sourcing from them (they are rather large and I want to do a thorough job), but, from my part, I'll be adding to that section in a little while. Dahn (talk) 20:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible problem with our treatment of "eternal return"

This article defines Eliade's "eternal return" as the re-living of events (for instance, by ritually telling or reenacting myths). I based that definition on the following statement made by Wendy Doniger:

"He [Eliade] taught us that myths (and, to a great extent, rituals) retold and reenacted in the present transport the worshipper back to the world of origins, the world of events that took place in illo tempore, "in that time"; this basic idea of what he called (after Nietzsche) "the eternal return" has become a truism in the study of religions..." (Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Shamanism

I think it's fairly obvious that Doniger's definition of "eternal return" is equivalent to the one given in the article:

"One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them."

Doniger was/is Eliade's disciple, friend, and successor. Therefore, I assumed that her definition of Eliade's "eternal return" had to be correct. However, check out this statement by Eliade:

"I am delighted that this little book is to be republished in the Harper Torchbook series, especially because it has given me the opportunity to restore the original title. The manuscript that I began in May, 1945, was headed Cosmos and History. It was only later that I changed its title to Archetypes and Repetition. But finally, at the suggestion of the French publisher, I made Archetypes and Repetition the subtitle, and the book was published in 1949 as The Myth of the Eternal Return (Le Mythe de l'éternel retour). This has sometimes given rise to misunderstandings. For one thing, the archaic ideology of ritual repetition, which was the central subject of my study, does not always imply the 'myth of the eternal return.' And then too, such a title could lead the reader to suppose that the book was principally concerned with the celebrated Greek myth or with its modern reinterpretation by Nietzsche, which is by no means the case" (Eliade, "Preface to the Torchbook Edition", Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return [NY: Harper & Row], p. vii).

OK, now I'm confused. Could someone help me interpret this passage? Is Eliade saying that re-living mythical events isn't always a case of "eternal return"? If so, what constitutes Eliade's "eternal return"? By "the myth of the eternal return", does Eliade mean only myths like the Greek myth of eternal return, which says that history repeats itself in cycles? (You can ritually re-live myths without believing that history repeats itself in cycles.) This seems to be the interpretation of Eliade's "eternal return" given by this freelance scholar's website. But it directly contradicts Doniger's interpretation. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all, Phatius, please excuse my tardiness in replying. Now, concerning the issue at hand: looking over the quotes you provide, I must say I don't see a major contradiction. Before I elaborate, I should of course say that most of what follows is speculation based on a narrow window of evidence, so the issue could perhaps be investigated further. But, as we stand, what I see is Eliade dissatisfied by the fact that his idea was/could be understood as tributary to either the Greek myth it compliments, or to Nietzsche's terminology. As far as I can tell, he is merely stressing that it is neither, but not in fact saying that there is absolutely no similarity between the two/three terms. From what I gather so far, he says: "Yes, it is kinda like eternal return as coined by the Greeks - the idea is the same, but the analogy was always imperfect." Sounds right? Dahn (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, when Eliade says, "The archaic ideology of ritual repetition [...] does not always imply the 'myth of the eternal return'," you think he means specifically the Greek myth of the eternal return. That's my impression too. At any rate, since the only published definition of Eliade's eternal return that I have is Doniger's, I'll leave the article as it is unless I find some more info. Thanks for your two cents. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The recent edits

I've looked over the recent edits made by Dahn. In general, I'm impressed. The section on Eliade's fiction is well-written and easy to understand. I'm certainly not the person to judge how comprehensive it currently is. It's a pity that the section contains the analysis of only one critic; however, I don't know how many major lit. critics have written about Eliade's work.

I must admit that the section on Eliade's early philosophical writings confuses me somewhat. I have trouble seeing a coherent argument or organizational principle in that section (but maybe that's because Eliade's philosophical writings themselves lack those characteristics). Just to give an example:

"Călinescu recorded Eliade's rejection of objectivity, citing the author's stated indifference towards 'naivite', 'contradictions' and 'theoretical data', as well as his dismissive thoughts on mainstream philosophy (Eliade saw the latter as 'inert, infertile and pathogenic'). Thus, as Eliade argued, 'a sincere brain is unassailable, for it denies itself to any relationship with outside truths.'

The young writer was however careful to clarify that the existence he took into consideration was not the life of 'instincts and personal idiosyncrasies', which he believed determined the lives of many humans, but that of 'personalities'. He described the latter as characterized by both 'purpose' and 'a much more complicated and dangerous alchemy'. This differentiation, George Călinescu believed, echoed Ionescu's metaphor of man, seen as 'the only animal who can fail at living', and the duck, who 'shall remain a duck no matter what it does'. According to Eliade, the purpose of personalities is infinite: 'consciously and gloriously bringing [existence] to waste, into as many skies as possible, continuously fulfilling and polishing oneself, seeking ascent and not circumference.'

The first paragraph shown above makes sense, although it might benefit from some clarification. When it says that Eliade is "indifferent" toward "contradictions", does it mean that he thinks two contradictory statements can both be true? (In other words, is Eliade denying the law of non-contradiction?) When it says that Eliade denies "objectivity", does it mean that he denies the very possibility of making one's beliefs correspond to objective reality, or does it simply mean that he sees humans as hopelessly biased?

I honestly can't make heads or tails of the second paragraph. (Again, that may be Eliade's fault, not Dahn's.) For example, Călinescu defines "personalities" as characterized (for Eliade) by "purpose" and a "complicated and dangerous alchemy". Is this just another way of saying that truly having "personality", as opposed to mere individuality (e.g., "personal idiosyncrasies"), means having a sense of purpose and some interesting characteristics? I'm not sure. Also, it took me a while to figure out why the word "however" appears in the first sentence of the second paragraph. "However" usually implies that what follows somehow contrasts with what came before. After a little thought, I figured it out:

First paragraph: Eliade denies objectivity. He thinks each person is basically condemned to individuality, condemned to create his own relationship to reality.

However...

Second paragraph: Eliade isn't interested in just any kind of individuality, but only in the individuality of great "personalities".

Now that I think about it, this makes sense. But I'm a bit worried, because it took me a while to figure it out. Dahn, perhaps you could reword the second paragraph a bit?

Anyway, thanks for all the hard work, Dahn. I'm glad we finally have something like a complete outline of Eliade's life/career. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 23:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the the quick response and very helpful insight. Indeed, you got the meaning right - except that part on "contradictions". I do believe that what Călinescu means is that Eliade is not afraid of contradicting himself - something like "on page 1, I will write this, and you may find that, on page 3, I say the exact opposite - but that is okay, because my intended purpose is to experience and experiment with what I write, and not to give you an outline of the philosophy you may be accustomed to" (Zen, anyone?). The helpful thing is that he cites Eliade saying it; the problematic thing is that the direct quotes are not much longer than the ones I cited in the article, so I had to be careful not to substitute Călinescu's opinion for Eliade's - in turn, that was bound to lead to a loss of clarity. It's also that I was doing this in one go (which was probably not the best way to tackle it). I will however try my best to rephrase all that portion of text to make the points more obvious.

Indeed, the single source issue is bound to be a problem, especially considering that Călinescu was not one the friendliest critics of Eliade - in fact, the magazine he wrote for was at times ridiculing Eliade the writer, and some of those articles may actually be Călinescu's work (they're signed with a pseudonym). I tried to find additional commentary in Lovinescu, who is equally relevant as a critic and who, as far as I could tell, found Eliade a much more interesting writer than Călinescu did. I was yet unable to find his book, even though I had asked a friend to "store" it for me. I'm still on the lookout, so perhaps later...

I'm in the process of including more from other sources - including ones that discuss Eliade's post-1940 literary works (which, for some - probably political - reason, Călinescu does not). The problem I face is that they are intertwined with text that could be used in sourcing other sections, so I'm reviewing them slowly, in order to "milk them dry". Once I'll finish with at least the bulk of this task, I'll address all your concerns. Dahn (talk) 23:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I rephrased that part, and it is hopefully clearer now. I'm sure my additions will need more copyedits, so I am looking forward to any intervention or suggestion (I'll use the inuse tag only for more substantial additions). Dahn (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

My recent addition: "Politics of Myth"

As promised, I added the basic argument from Ellwood's "Politics of Myth" about the connection between Eliade's experiences, his theories of myth, and his shady political involvements. I couldn't decide where to put it, so I made a whole new section for it. It's rather long, and I imagine it could use some editing to make it more concise. Ellwood is admittedly rather sympathetic to Eliade, so it would be great if we could find a different scholar who also addresses this connection. For right now, though, this will have to do. (The preexisting section on "Far right and nationalist influences" isn't really about the same thing that Ellwood discusses, as far as I can tell.) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 04:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the research and the hard work. I would, however, consider merging it into various other sections: it is actually feasible for part of it to go into the "Far right and nationalist influences", and the rest can be included in other parts. If one summarizes the connections between staements and the context every time Elwood is cited in a new section, we would not risk splitting the point. The thing is that the section currently repeats info present in other sections (part of that is actually my fault - for example, we were adding the info on Ionescu's preface to Sebastian's book and Eliade's reaction to it at roughly the same time...). If you don't mind, I would like to try my hand at such a move soon, and, in case you disagree with my changes, you could of course revert me or correct me immediately. Would that be okay by you? Dahn (talk) 04:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds fine. Go ahead and incorporate what I added into other sections. If you don't mind, maybe you could try doing it piecemeal (i.e., moving one subsection or less of the "Connections between..." section at a time) so that I can keep track of what's being moved where. Thanks! --Phatius McBluff (talk) 05:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I'll get around to it sometime in the next 24-48 hours, as I'm gonna have to log off now. I'll also leave a summary, here on the talk page, of what part I plan to move into which section. In any case, this is the type of situation where it is easier to show what you mean than to describe it. Dahn (talk) 05:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Dahn -- I kept on re-editing the section, because I kept finding things I could add or parts I could clarify. (Remember, my writing is a paraphrase of Ellwood, who is himself paraphrasing Eliade. Thus, I wanted to make my writing as precise as possible, so that when you paraphrase my writing and incorporate it into other sections, it remains as accurate as possible.) However, I'm now quite happy with the section, and I'm going to keep my hands off it for a while to let you incorporate it into the rest of the article. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 01:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you again. Here is how I'm going to go at incorporating the new section into the article (ordered by place in text; the steps themselves are not necessarily in this order):

1) Move the stand-alone introductory section to "Far right and nationalist influences" (a section about criticism may include answers to and reviews of criticism).

2) Move the bulk of the "Gnosticism and romanticism" into the "Philosophy" section, either as stand-alone section or as a distinct paragraph in the final section. Connect the rest with the former stand-alone section in "Far right and nationalist influences".

3) Move the basic bio detail in "Exile and nostalgia" to "Childhood and adolescence". Move some of the conclusion together with stuff from move 2) in the "Philosophy" section, clarifying the connection Ellwood makes with Eliade's childhood and with Eliade's take on his own bio. Move the part strictly about the Iron Guard to "Posterity" (in "Controversy"), to come alongside/right after claims that Eliade was actually a conservative. Ellwood's argument about "radical modernism" would go in the same section - before or after Oişteanu's arguments concerning the hippies. In the process, split the quote about the "Return from paradise" - keeping the direct reference to the book as critical commentary, to be used in "Portrayals of a generation".

4) Move the very last paragraph under "Far right and nationalist influences".

5) About Sebastian's book, Ionescu's preface, and Eliade's intervention: I'm inclined to condense and move your additions to a section of the bio where the incident is already mentioned. I could move that section down to the "Controversy" section, but this seems to me as a more natural order of events.

There are a lot of subtleties involved in making these edits, so I did not list all changes that would have to be made. While some are self-evident (for example, I would have to clarify again who the "three mythologists" Ellwood discusses are in case a gap appears in the text between this sentence and the one citing them), others will pop to mind while I edit.

I'll start in about half an hour or so, just in case you have objections that you want me address beforehand. Dahn (talk) 18:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't really visualize how the finished product of these edits would look. At this point, if I offered some concrete advice, it would just be me talking for the sake of talking. Go ahead and make the edits, and I'll see what I think after you're done. My main concern is that you try to include (even if in a combined/reworded form) all the sentences I have cited pg numbers for. (For instance, try to preserve the point about Eliade's own exile contributing to his notion that exile is a metaphor for all human life, thus influencing his theory of an earlier stage of culture (from which modern man is now "exiled") before man had to face the "terror of history".) We begin to rapidly lose detail and accuracy when we lose the quotes and citations within an argument. Thanks for doing this! --Phatius McBluff (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this is how I managed it. I did shorten some direct quotes and made them part of the prose, and I did condense some of the points that were either already explicit or for which explained things already explained in the text (for example, going over what "terror of history" and "eternal return" imply is largely pointless now - once these were moved to the "Philosophy" section, they come right after large portions of text were these are some of the main topics). Having split some of Ellwood's arguments over several sections, I did try to emphasize how they relate to one another without becoming repetitive. I have also adapted some of my earlier proposals on what to merge where: in some cases, I found better places for some of the quotes. I did not, however, remove any of the ideas and concepts introduced by Ellwood; if I did it was by sheer accident (I do apologize in advance if any such blunder occurred in the process, and, if so required from me, I'll do my best to amend it promptly). Dahn (talk) 00:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Good job, Dahn! + a small concern

I played around with the article a bit, but left it substantially as you did. On the whole, I'm satisfied with how it turned out. I'm a bit worried, though, by the need to split information between the "Far right and nationalist influences" subsection under "Criticisms" and the "Controversy: Antisemitism and the Iron Guard" section. There's some material that I think could go equally well in either of these parts (as you can see from the equivocation in my most recent edit history). It's not as big a problem as it might seem, because anyone who's interested in reading one of those parts with probably read the other. But the largely arbitrary placement of some material in one rather than the other annoys me. For instance, Ellwood tries to extract a political philosophy from Eliade's later work. Does this belong in "Far right ... influences"? (It's a case of looking for far right influences in Eliade's later work.) Or does it belong in "Controversy"? (Based on Eliade's later work, Ellwood concludes that Eliade's sympathy for Iron Guard principles had significantly dissolved.) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 03:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess my main problem is with this passage:

Despite Eliade's withdrawal from radical politics, Robert Ellwood indicates, he still sought an escape from the current "fallen" world. In one of his writings, Eliade says, "Against the terror of History there are only two possibilities of defense: action or contemplation." According to Ellwood, the young Eliade took the former option, trying to reform the world through action, whereas the older Eliade resisted the terror of history intellectually. Eliade still wanted to see a cultural renewal in Romania, but he now worked for it by academic rather than political means. He saw himself and other exiled Romanian intellectuals as members of a circle who worked to "maintain the culture of a free Romania and, above all, to publish texts that had become unpublishable in Romania itself".

As far as I can tell, it doesn't really belong either in "Controversy" (since it isn't about Eliade's involvement with the Iron Guard, and is only tangentially related to Eliade's later lack of involvement with it [it could just as well be about Eliade's sheer disillusionment with politics]) or in "Far right and nationalist influences" (since it isn't specifically about how Eliade's theories were biased by far right politics). See my most recent edit, where I tried (unsuccessfully, in my view) to put that passage in a more logical location. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 04:05, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you yet again. There are, of course, several ways of tackling this issue. My rationale, which is by no means a final verdict, focused on "Eliade still wanted to see a cultural renewal in Romania". This, I gather, is Ellwood elaborating on the fact that Eliade was still motivated by one of the reasons that got him interested in the Iron Guard, but was no longer channeling it in the same way. It also contains a direct reference to his political involvement, meaning that it would look awkward to place it in the "Philosophy" section. Since it references a process, starting from what Ellwood and Ellwood alone sees as a specific motivation for supporting the Guard ("cultural renewal"), I still think my solution was better - at the moment, the text reads that Eliade "still wanted a cultural renewal", but the indication that he wanted it in the first place is several paragraphs below it.

There is another way. Since you have the text in front of you and know best what exactly it says, you could move the parts that are not essential to the argument (i.e.: the ones that simply describe his activities, such as his cultural activities in exile) to "Biography", or leave them where they presently are. You could then summarize the conclusion that Ellwood draws about Eliade's motivations and move it back to where it previously was. The latter could read something like: "Based on his cultural activities in exile, Ellwood believes that Eliade channeled the same motivation to an apolitical purpose etc." This would not harm the point he is making about Eliade's transition from political to apolitical. Provided this is feasible, it would probably be the best solution. Dahn (talk) 05:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks great to me. Dahn (talk) 05:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The second longest biography of Wikipeda

I know that Eliade was a productive influential person but this is the second longest biography of Wikipeda. May be even some more ancillary article would be justified. Andries (talk) 10:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I for one admit this is getting to be problem. Let me outline my main proposals: I shall start a new article to cover the controversy part, and add it as a main article before curtailing that section in this article; that should reduce part of the text to more manageable proportions, but I think there should be some detailed discussion concerning what to do with the other parts of the article. Note: I am of the opinion that the biographical section should remain as is, since starting separate articles on a person and his/her life seems absolutely senseless to me. I would also like to add more from various sources to those other sections, to get the absolutely complete picture (to the measure where this is possible), before doing the same there. Dahn (talk) 17:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... I too am starting to feel that this article is far too long. Dahn's proposal is reasonable. I'm tempted to suggest something similar for the section on Eliade's philosophy of religion, since (however essential and un-condensable it may currently be) its length is disproportionate to its relative importance. I would not suggest trying to remove material on Eliade's scholarly theories; that material is probably the main reason that someone would look up an article on Eliade. (That's not to say that we shouldn't eventually consider creating separate articles that offer expanded discussions of Eliade's various theories.) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 19:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That may very well be true. I was interested in Eliade because of his theory of religion. See user:Andries/Theories_of_religion#Eliade_and_the_sacred. Andries (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with Phatius: the theory of religion is, afaict, an excellent and comprehensive summary, and there's nothing I would take out of it. Another issue here is that of Eliade's literary works: I would also like to see that section about the same length as it is now - or, to be closer to the mark, I consider that creating an intermediate article to cover his literature to be rather pointless, since the article on his major books are or (for most) are set to be articles on their own, and since there already is an article on his whole bibliography. Incidentally, I would also suggest that the future possible creation of articles on Eliade's theories also assume a "topical" rather than abstract form: the Eternal return article is a very good example of this system (one I favor over articles of the, say, "Eliade and Christianity" or "Eliade's view of Jainism" type).

I'm already working on a separate article around the part in "Controversy" - which would also cover some parts in Biography and Legacy. I'll reduce and condense the fragments in question once that is completed. Dahn (talk) 23:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I started on an article user:Andries/Mircea Eliade's cultural legacy. I could use some help. It is a copy of the contents here and I hope that eventually a shorter summary will appear here. Andries (talk) 19:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the summary is sufficiently informative for 70% of the readers and for 10% even the summary is too long. The current main article is I believe sufficiently informative for 95% (only 5% will read an ancillary article) and too long for 80%. Let try to ensure that the main article will be sufficiently informative for 90% and too long for 40%. Andries (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Kafka

I think it would take a lot of intellectual effort to not see the influence of Kafka on his fiction. Is there any word on how he reconciled this with the anti-semiticism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.15.232 (talk) 08:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Split this article, please!

Suggestions Clearly, this article is far too long for Wikipedia. That having been said, most all of it is fine, on-topic, and well-sourced, so it is not worth deleting it outright. May I suggest the following rough guideline for splitting this article:

Section 1 - Biography is essentially the meat of the article and should be kept in its entirety

Sections 2 and 3 - The scholar and Eliade's philosophy should basically be split into Philosophy of Mircea Eliade. These sections should be consolidated in this main article and provide a {{main}} link.

Sections 4 and 6 - Criticism of Eliade's scholarship and Controversy: antisemitism and links with the Iron Guard should be split into Criticism of Mircea Eliade. Again, these should be consolidated into one brief overview here with a {{main}} link.

Section 5 - Literary works should probably be more brief and much of its material ported over to Bibliography of Mircea Eliade, which already exists.

Section 7 - Cultural legacy should remain

All the bibliographical material should remain and relevant resources should be referenced in the philosophy of and criticism of articles.

Does this make sense to anyone else? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 06:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I support the idea of splitting this page into subarticles. Excellent article, no doubt. But it takes way too long to load and I think it would be much more readable if we summarized more and created subpages. Let's look at some other articles that use this method:

• Barack Obama: Early life and career of Barack Obama, Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama, United States Senate career of Barack Obama, Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008, Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008, Political positions of Barack Obama. Also note that there is a navigation template so that readers can easily go from page-to-page instead of having to scan the entire article.
• Hugo Chávez: Early life of Hugo Chávez, Military career of Hugo Chávez, Presidency of Hugo Chávez, Foreign policy of Hugo Chávez, Media representation of Hugo Chávez, Criticism of Hugo Chávez.
• Saffron: History of saffron, Trade and use of saffron (note that if those two articles were merged into the main one it would be about the size of this page).

All of the above mentioned pages are about as good as this one, but the only difference is that they all use subpages while this one does not. Are there any objections to shortening (not deleting) this article? Khoikhoi 01:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to splitting into subarticles. I don't think the "scholar" and "philosophy" sections should be put into a subarticle titled Philosophy of Mircea Eliade. While Eliade's academic theories could all be classified as "philosophy of religion" in a very loose sense, Eliade was a historian, not a philosopher, by profession. The sections on "the scholar" and on "philosophy" should either have separate subarticles or be combined under the title Academic theories of Mircea Eliade (or something similar). --Phatius McBluff (talk) 02:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi everyone. Sorry for my long absence and my tardiness, but these two last months were very rough for me, and I'm still catching up with my backlog. As I have said, I do not oppose a split, though I have to say I do not see any sense of urgency in performing it - yes, it's big, but better big than botched up. My main concern is about splitting the article judiciously and coherently, which would imply a lot of thinking and a complete vew over what both the article and its potential spawns contain and should contain.

Let me elaborate. For one, the article is obviously more than the sum of its parts: contributors (me included) organized their edits around the priorities required for one article - making it condensed and non-repetitive; splits should not just be what we managed to cut out of an article, but also autonomous articles which summarize all that is relevant in connection to other aspects of the subject. E.g.: this article will deal with the man's biography, and will inevitably mention his involvement with fascism (in the main text and in the summary of other potential articles); but do consider that his involvement with fascism is a topic of discussion in generic criticism of Eliade, in his philosophy, in part of his scholarly career, and in overviews of his literary contributions (all of which are also interconnected by other subjects). Therefore, the sheer biographical detail should be not just detailed here, but summaried in four articles or more - it is common sense that the reader knows what his documented connection to fascism is and how it relates to each of the individual topics. The same goes for many other core issues in the present text, all of which would require similar solutions, and together would amont to something close to a rewrite.

Also note that, while the article does say much, it does not say all things relevant. To give you one example, the text says next to nothing about his post-1940 literary contributions (and these are some of his best-known and most critically-acclaimed fiction works). I am planning to do something about that in the future, and am willing to redirect that info into subarticles and summaries, but this implies even more planning ahead and a underlines why it is important to hold a coherent overall perspective.

Oh, and: I'm with Phatius on the "Academic theories (or something similar)" title, for the reasons he so competently provided. Dahn (talk) 14:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"For one, the article is obviously more than the sum of its parts: contributors (me included) organized their edits around the priorities required for one article - making it condensed and non-repetitive."

I completely agree with Dahn here, and that's one of the main reasons I'm frustrated about the prospect of splitting the article. Editors (for example, me) put a lot of work into making the text "concise" enough to fit into a single article, and it would be a shame to see their effort go to waste.

Let me suggest a compromise — a 3-way division: biography, theories, and literary work. Dividing it this way would minimize overlap. With due respect to Dahn, I really don't think there need be too much overlap regarding "fascism" criticism between Eliade's biography and his theory subarticle. Anyway, having a subarticle that acts as a depository for all the various criticisms of Eliade (an idea mentioned above) — although a completely understandable course of action — just looks bad: Eliade is being criticized on two distinct fronts (his politics and his academic theories), so there must be a better way to organize material. Instead, we should separate Eliade criticism according to what's being criticized: political criticism into the biography, academic criticism into the theories subarticle. Of course, the "gnostic" stuff from Ellwood will overlap between those two articles, and to make the Ellwood material intelligible in the theories subarticle, we will need to mention that Eliade had involvements with the Iron Guard. But besides Ellwood, I don't think much more needs to overlap, if we do this right.

Does this make sense? Like Dahn, I see no particular urgency in performing this split. We need to get it right the first time, not do it fast. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I just realized a problem with my above suggestion. Assuming that the biography article remains the main article, the article under the heading Mircea Eliade will essentially revert to the form it had before I added all that material on Eliade's theories: biography and then antisemitism/fascism involvement. If you recall, that article had a surprising ability to make many people very angry. Perhaps political criticism should have have its own subarticle, as Koavf suggested above; it certainly contains enough material for a separate article. However, such a subarticle should be clearly titled as political criticism (maybe Controversial political involvements of Mircea Eliade?). Criticism of Eliade's academic and philosophical theories belongs in the subarticle on his theories. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me start my answer by explaining my exact point concerning the repetition issue when it comes to Eliade's fascism: I fully agree that it would not result in a "major overlap", but one would need to clarify how it comes into play (note: it is especially relevant for Ellwood, since he touches on a chronological succession that would need to be explained, but is in any case reflected by what other authors cited have to say - see Ţurcanu, Antohi, Dubuisson, Tolcea; in any case, if the emerging article is to assume a well-written form, I feel it should not just be reflected in a summary here, but also parallel the main article where this proves necessary). The same would also go for an article on his literary/philosophical works (from Trăirism and what it meant, through to Călinescu's reading of "revolutionary" messages and Sebastian's views on Eliade's plays, to his "maybe or maybe not Legionary" Iberian diaries and Mutti's allegations). Also, I was using this as a ready-made example of many such moves thrugh which Eliade's biography would need to be briefly but decisively connected to what critics say - superflous in this article, but important (even vital) in potential spawns.

Concerning your last post, and noting that I share your fears on this matter, I think that the best title would be Mircea Eliade and the far right. This has a number of advantages I can think of: it does not limit the complex relationship Eliade had with the far right (note that he started, and some say also ended up, by rejecting it); it does not let the readers assume that Eliade's connection to the far right is mostly the stuff of criticism (i.e.: he was connected to the far right, and the far right still celebrates that connection); "far right" would cover not just fascism, but also ultra-nationalism, antisemitism and protochronism (three traits that circumvent or go beyond fascism, and which various critics treat independently of his fascist connection); "far right" would also address the issue of Iron Guard connections in their entirety, as mainstream historical discourse has a variety of interpretations when it comes to how fascist the Legionaries were and when. What do you think? Dahn (talk) 16:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Mircea Eliade and the far right would be a good title. So it looks like we're leaning toward a 4-way division: bio, theories, literary work, and far right. I think the bio can remain nearly unchanged. It was the main bulk of the article to begin with (and already discusses far right involvement). The theories subarticle is a bit trickier. Let me suggest that, as a first step, we simply treat the preexisting theories sections as a separate article, and then read through it, giving biographical background as the need arises in the ordinary flow of the text. Dealing with the far right article should actually be much easier. Besides adding a brief intro, I think the material can remain substantially unchanged. We need only make sure the reader knows who/what we're talking about when we mention things that were explained in the bio: for example, we need to mention that Ionescu was a friend and mentor to Eliade during his student years (as for his antisemitism, etc., those are of course explained in the preexisting text). Much more explanation than that would defeat the purpose of the article split by making the text too intricate and would (in my opinion) insult the reader's ability to click on a link and read the bio article. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My two cents Thanks for asking for my input. I see no reason why the word "academic" is necessary; just make theories of Mircea Eliade. It's not like the article is titled Christian theology of Søren Kierkegaard, it's just theology of Søren Kierkegaard. The controversies and criticism would all work well on a single page criticism of Mircea Eliade. "Criticism of X" pages are not novel (e.g. the Hugo Chávez example from above.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Koavf-- You're right; Theories of Mircea Eliade is fine. I'm not sure I agree with you about the criticism page. I feel that criticism of Eliade's theories naturally goes along with Theories of Mircea Eliade in a way that criticism of his politics doesn't naturally go along with his biography. Having a separate subarticle on Mircea Eliade and the far right seems completely sensible to me, considering that most of the controversy on this talk page originally had to do with precisely the subject of Eliade and the far right.

To reduce the size of the theories subarticle, we can move the Ellwood material on "modern gnosticism" completely to the Mircea Eliade and the far right. That material really has to do with Eliade's politics, and it draws on his theories only insofar as they illuminate his politics. Moreover, someone solely interested in Eliade's theories probably wouldn't be interested in it. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

My view:

"Academic theories" hits the nail on the head - Eliade also had theories in existential philosophy, literature, art, politics. So I for one would favor the more specific title.

A good way to solve all this potential clutter in the "theories" article is the following: gather up all the criticism of Eliade the historian of religion from a political perspective (in a separate summary-style section - "Far right and nationalist influences" or smthg, much like we already do); have a "main article" link headlining that section, and leading to "Eliade and the far right". Note that this would allow all Ellwood etc. say to be mentioned with due weight, and elaborated upon in the larger and more general article on Eliade's involvment with the far right. Sounds good? Dahn (talk) 09:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Phatius McBluff: what do you think? Khoikhoi 07:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The interesting thing is that I actually did this without reading this page some months ago, on another wiki (Mircea Elide's life, Eliade the scholar, Mircea Eliade and the Iron Guard etc.) because it was too big for one article. Anyway, I support a split on the above-mentioned categories too. --Anime Addict AA (talk) 19:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Long

This is currently the longest non-list article on Wikipedia. For shame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.230.48.248 (talk) 00:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Non-Existing Words

I've noticed some words in the article that don't seem to exist in Wiktionary or any dictionary that i've looked up. Like depolitisation in Polemics and Exile, or sacrality which is mentioned a few times in the article. Could someone please try and find out if these words really exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.242.160.173 (talk) 15:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

footnote problems

for some reason, when you go to the notes at the bottom of the page, you can see footnotes 1-6 and then the next footnote is 192. i suspect there is a wiki-coding snafu around footnote six, but i can't figure out how to fix it. could one of you do it? Katsam (talk) 07:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

No, look again. A user turned the notes section into a scrolling section, and it was already divided into three columns. All things considered, it was a pretty good idea, but I can see why it can be confusing. Just drag down the scroll to the right and you'll see 7 etc. Dahn (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Spelling check

Just to let you know, I've noticed a few spelling mistakes throughout the article, and I will try to sort them out. Any changes I make will be for that reason. Ross Rhodes (talk) 20:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Semitism

I've noticed that the word anti-Semitism has been written as antisemitism, so I'll be changing that as I check the article.

That is the common practice on wikipedia. Since neither variant is wrong,. and this is the preferred one, you're wasting your time. Dahn (talk) 17:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Words to be checked

The following words I cannot find out what they are meant to be, as I cannot find them in any dictionary, please help me find out;

Biography section

• Semiologist - No result
• Epiphanic - closest result: epiphany
• Hierophany or hierophanies - closest result: hierophant
• Theophany - No Result

The scholar section

• Cosmogonic - closet result: cosmogony
• llud - closet result: Illus
• Kalpas - closet result: kalpaks
• Tehom - No Result
• Paradisiac - closest result: paradisiacal

Spelling check is currently un-finished

STOP: this is getting ridiculous. First of all, you should NEVER change words within quotes, unless they are obvious misprints. Secondly: random changes from "psychopomp" to "psycho pomp" show that you have you no clue about at least some of the changes, and are doing whatever it is you're doing by ear. Please, having to check these is hard enough. That you get no results "therefore they must be wrong" is a most absurd argument. Please, stop. Dahn (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

About it being a long page

Me - This is a very interesting introduction of quality to Eliade; I think it's qualities necessitate it's length. Thanks to those involved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.187.147 (talk) 16:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I do have to agree that it is a bit of a long article, being in Special:Longpages as no. 75 out of the so many there are on the English Wikipedia. Though I like it as it is. I don't think we should shorten it down. All that its really going to do a cause chaos from it being a nicely organizated article to a bit of a divided mess. Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 20:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I basically agree. There have been proposals for splitting the article, some of which have been rather reasonable. But I personally have no problem with the article in its current state. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:20, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad to know someone agrees with me on this. Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 10:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

This is probably the first article on a 20th century scholar on wikipedia that I think is legitimately great. Kudos, folks. I don't think it's too long. Very thorough.Guinness4life (talk) 03:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I like to see author bibliographies, and perhaps we could create a separate article of his published and translated books? would that help in making the article shorter? or would it cause confusion? Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:35, 25 May 2009 (UTC) never mind, i just found that list. can anyone tell me how to line out text here?(thanks)

Can we please get rid of the box at the top of the article's page, I disagree with what it says and I'm sure others agree with me. Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 09:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

While this is by no means a strict guideline for article size, Eliades article is up there with article on Hitler, the holocaust, the economy of china, the novel, the eighty years war (which is also tagged thusly). its also up there with lots of long lists, which you can't compare, but i would say that this size is more appropriate for more notable people/subjects, and necessarily long lists. the longest article (a list) is 381kbytes, longest nonlist article (tunisia) is 286kbytes, eliades article is 194kbytes, article on the US is 159 kb (probably this short due to being broken up into smaller articles). and remember, this is an encyclopedia article, which doesnt have to be exhaustive. serious researchers would have to go to sources anyway. that said, i do recognize her importance in her field, and how much modern thought is influenced by her work. so i would lean towards having reduction in main article size by budding off new articles, but not heavily so. hope this info helps. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 20:37, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I may not be the best person to comment on this issue, since I did contribute much of the text, and am therefore subjective. But here's the thing: article splits tend to be counterproductive, especially in situations were they summarize a controversy - since it's only a careful review of who said what and in what context that can lead to a balanced text. Splits from this article are theoretically possible (and i do not object to them, if they are done right - not just broken off the main text, but summarized and, once in their place of destination, actually expanded); however, let me also point out that this should not in fact much reduce the article, which, if I do say so myself, is a fair summary as is. By that I mean that it is not, nor tries to be exhaustive, and in fact it is far from complete (alas). It being complete/exhaustive does not mean it being much larger. This works both ways: the article is as large as it is because it most likely needs to - not because it tries to say everything, but because it tries to review all things important to the subject (an effort which, admittedly, is both necessary and required by the quality standards); the article will not get much larger, but it may get denser. But i join the others in noting that there is no actual danger in the article being as large as it is.

I also believe that the comparisons with other articles are flawed: for several individual reasons, the issue applies differently to many of them (for example, the article on the Holocaust can summarize info from thousands of articles on individual topics of the Holocaust, which is patently not possible with an intelligent biographical article; as for Hitler - the article has spun thousands of tiny "baby" articles that are out of control and confuse the reader, but that can be said to follow individual, distinguishable topics). I also note that none of the objections mentioning size addresses the issue of quality - sure, an article on an admittedly more important subject is presently shorter than this one, but does that mean it gives better coverage to its subject?

One final point: in the post above, Mercurywoodrose, you refer to Eliade as "she". Allow me to note that not having read as far into the article as to grow aware of Eliade's gender projects the image that the size-to-exhaustiveness assessment is not fair. Dahn (talk) 21:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

im sorry, i have a tendency to let particular names become stuck incorrectly in my head as male/female, and forgot mircea was a man. i did this with my favorite science fiction writer for years. no excuse for doing that here, though. i actually see all your points, and i am not going to take any action on this article. I would say that the reverse is true, that there are a lot of articles on notable people which should be longer. i guess im just thinking about how to address WPs concerns about longer articles (i think the idea is that slower internet connections make longer articles difficult to access). If in the future i want to suggest any changes, i will become more familiar with this article, and read it thoroughly. i am very interested in mythology, depth psychology, and wrote the stub article on Parabola (magazine), which is how i noticed this article. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty curious on how "beautiful" articles like on Barrack Obama, George W. Bush and others would look if people with the above perceptions would have their way there. I think there are reasons they don't :) --Anime Addict AA (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Translations

Hi there people! I thought I should make translations from the other articles of Eliade on other Wikipedias to see if there's more info that can be added to this brilliant article. Just one problem; I used Google Translate, meaning there will be multiple mistakes throughout these translations, though they should be good enough to understand what is written in the article. Here's the list of links:

I'm still working on translating other pages, though here are the ones I have done at the moment.

Plagiarism

Please, take a look at this: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Mircea_Eliade#encyclopedia

Who was the first? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.87.13.67 (talk) 09:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

PS. I am confused. The articles about Tommaso Campanella in abovementioned encyclopedia and wikipedia also look very similar. Could anyone explain it??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.87.13.67 (talk) 09:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows sites to mirror its content. I'm sure just about any article there matches a preceding wikipedia one. Dahn (talk) 10:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explanation!

• Translation from the Bulgarian Wikipedia
• Translation from the Catalan Wikipedia
• Translation from the Czech Wikipedia

Hope there's useful information in these translations! Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 19:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, my suggestion was actually about using sources. Dahn (talk) 10:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Religious survivals in the secular world

I have tried, in vain to change what I consider serious faults in this section. The quotes are in english, of course, but the texts were written in french in a surrounding where expressions like Religious survivals... would be marginal. Inside the institutes for anthropology and history of religion nobody believed in a secular world and everybody then wanted to include the modern world in the religious development. Politically, the french left wing has an uninterrupted chain of thinkers who considered their movement religious. This goes from Proudhon to Leon Blum and Eliade could not ignore it. His intentions with the essays from the fifties can only be understood when considering the above mentioned facts --83.193.241.240 (talk) 13:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC) Mio Nielsen, France.

Please read the WP:OR policy, particularly its subsection WP:SYNTH. Dahn (talk) 14:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for educating me. But my point of view is, that the essays from the fifties should also be read in the way the author intended to hit the french readers of the moment. And I say also, on purpose. For me it is OK and interesting to hear what present days english and american readers get out of it, but that should not stand alone. That Eliade at that time - in 1953 - tried to let the reader believe that he was going to include ideologies as a serious issue in historical religious research... was confirmed when he edited the three volume "Histoire des croyances et idées religieuses" in which he promised to continue the research in "atheistic theology of modern time". I am not trying to put original research in the article, but original (first-hand) reading! I admit of course, that several readings are possible.--83.193.241.240 (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)Mio Nielsen

Not an issue of education, not an issue of reading. It's about ehat can and cannot go into wikipedia articles. Dahn (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to say that when I changed the title of this chapter into "The religious creativity in the modern world" then I took the expression directly from Eliade. In 1983 he was summarizing what he was going to write about contemporary issues in "Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses" and says: "Enfin, dans le dernier chapitre, je tâcherai d'analyser la créativité religieuse des sociétés modernes." Vol. III, p. 7. And it is not at all the only time that he used such an expression. But maybe you cannot find it in the english versions of his works and I can imagine the reasons for that. Eliade of course, could supervise the translations of his works. Maybe he did some of it himself, when discovering that he had changed opinion or camp... BUT should Wikipedia not describe a writer on the basis of the original version of his works? --86.201.96.9 (talk) 17:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC) Mio Nielsen.

"BUT should Wikipedia not describe a writer on the basis of the original version of his works?" No, quite the contrary. See WP:PSTS. Dahn (talk) 17:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that a published book is a primary source in its original version and a secondary (more reliable) source in its first translation??? Do you read that in the WP.PSTS? I am getting very interested in this!--86.201.96.9 (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)M.N.

Technically, yes, since the terms were already translated into and quoted from English. If I recall correctly, the edits in question made a point of replacing the translation selectively, and add an own translation from the original in place of them. And let's not kid ourselves: they also made original research speculations about what Eliade meant and did not mean.

In essence, the edits were addressed by my original message, where I cited WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The WP:PSTS was a reply to your invocation of a principle - when, in fact, the exact opposite of this principle is what works on wikipedia, for just cause. (and note, what you asked was: "BUT should Wikipedia not describe a writer on the basis of the original version of his works?"). Need we carry on like this? Dahn (talk) 12:30, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, no. I wont insist any longer.--82.125.184.14 (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)M.N.

pronunciation of his name

All I can see is an unreadable "Romanian pronunciation" (ˈmirt​͡ʃe̯a). Can this be cleaned up for universal viewing, and can some-one put in the English pronunciation?211.225.34.177 (talk) 01:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

There's an IPA help about right in the link. Technically, while there is a commonplace Englishified variant of the name (or maybe even a couple), that is no more an "English" version than an incorrect version. I for one have suggested adding an IPA key to that as well, but I can see why other editors would not want to encourage the perpetuation of faux diglossia. Dahn (talk) 04:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see IPA, much less "help about right in the link" (?). If you mean hovering over the garbage, there is nothing that came up. As for an English version: The man lived in the U.S., so it would be nice to know how his name was pronounced in English -- at least a hint?? Is his last name something like Ell ee add' es, or El lee' uh deez or Ee lee a−dz'  ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.225.37.47 (talk) 05:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's garbage... Have you tried clicking on it, perchance? And what is it that you mean how his name is pronounced in English? If you mean "how the English/Americans tend to pronounce it"? As long as it would probably incorrect, anything goes, but I suppose they pronounce it Meer che' ah Eh' lee ad or Ee' lee ad. If you mean the native pronunciation, it something like Meer' cha Eh lee' adeh. That is rendered here in the IPA, that is to say the International Phonetic Alphabet, whose very name implies that it is uniform all over the world - may be you are not familiar with it, but we can't really replace it with a more user-friendly version of whatever "English pronunciation" means to you personally, can we? Especially not when clicking the internal link will lead you in one move to a table with how the universal phonemes are rendered in the Romanian spelling... Try it, really. Dahn (talk) 10:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

well I'm in America and I heard an old librarian lady pronounce his name Meer-see-ah El-y-ah-dee. I don't know all the English/American variant pronunciations, the pronunciation that should be clarified in the article is the native Romanian pronunciation first of all. Alex (talk) 11:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)