Mircea Eliade

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[O.S.] Mircea Eliade (March 9] [O.S.] February 24th – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of faith, fiction writer, essayist, and professor at the University of Chicago.

He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established religious beliefs that persist to this day.

His assertion that hierophanies are the product of faith, which has divided the human experience of life into sacred and profane space and time has been influential.

One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his interpretation of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not only honor hierophanies but also involve religious people, at least to the religious's hearts.

The best known are Maitreyi ("La Nuit Bengali"), Noaptea de Sânziene ("The Forbidden Waters"), Isabel?i apele diavolului ("Isabel and the Devil's Waters"), And Romanul Adolescent"), "Nosabel and the Children" ("My Father," "The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel?i apele diavolului"), Domnia? ("Youth Without Youth Without Youth"), "The Secret of the best known are the novels ("The Forget"), "The Forgetroberobe ("Is"), Isabel ("The Forbidden Forest"), "The Forgotten Children"), "The Forget"), Isabel ("The Forget The Forbidden Woods"), Isabel ("I"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forbidden"), "The Forbidden Woods"), "The Forbidden"), ("The Forbiddene ("The Forbidden"), The Fore ("The For The For The Forever"), "The Forgotten Child"), "The Forgotten" ("The Forbidden"), the Child"), & the Infant"), The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forgotten Waters"), Isabel ("The Forbidden," "The Forget the Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forbidden Forest"), "The Forget"), Destruction ("The Forbidden Forest"), ("The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forbidden ("The Forbidden"), "The Forbidden ("The Forget" ("The Forbidden Forest"), "The Forgotten"), Destruction, "The Forbidden"), "The Forbidden"), "The Fore," "The Forget"), "The For The Nearsighted Adolescent"), Isabel, "The Fore"), and "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Fore"), "The Devil's"), "The Forgotten" and "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forbidden"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forgotten Waters, "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), Sebastian ("The Forbidden Forest"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forbidden" and the Nearsighted Adolescent"), Christophe, "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Forgotten" and the Devil's"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), Romanul ("The Nearsighted Adolescent"), Der Spiegel ("The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), The Child"), The Divine," "The Eye of the Child"), Danielle," "The Devil's"), "The Children" and "The Unbelievable Adolescent"), The Book" The "The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel ("The Forbidden Forest"), Sebastian"), Miolescent"), the Book" and the Book, The Nearsighted Adolescent, "The Book of the Child"), The Book" and "The Forbidden Child and the Bible" ("The Forbidden" ("The Forbidden ("The Forbidden"), ("The Forgotten Child"), Desigier"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "Bene, "The Nearsighted Adolescent, "The Forbidden" ("The Child"), Matthew ("The Nearsighted Adolescent"), Dead" ("The Deer"), "The Delay ("The Forest"), ("The Dea"), "The De" ("The Decipe"), Matthew"), Dante" undi defene"), Isabel ("The Delay, Dess, "The Forbidden"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), The Novella"), "The Child"), "The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel ("The Nearsighted Adolescent"), the Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Nearsighted Adolescent"), "The Devil's, Matthew, "The Secret of the Age of the Book," Nomine, Toyene, The Nearsighted Adolescent," The Nearsighted Adolescent" The Adventure ("The Forbidden, the Younger," "The Devil's"), The Nearsighted Adolescent" or "The Forbidden, "The Forbidden

"With the Gypsy Girls" (Hayman) and La?iganci ("With the Gypsy Girls" (Honigberger). Eliade, a student of Romanian far-right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and a member of the Literary Society Criterion, began his life.

He served as the cultural ambassador to the United Kingdom and Portugal in the 1940s.

Eliade has often expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a nationalist and antisemitic political group, during the late 1930s.

Following World War II, his political service at the time, as well as his other far right links, were often criticized. Eliade, who was noted for his extensive erudition, had fluent knowledge of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) as well as a broader reading comprehension of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit).

He was named a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy.

Early exile

Eliade opted not to return to Romania at the signs that the Romanian communist government was about to take power. He and his adopted daughter, Giza, arrived in France on September 16, 1945, on September 16, 1945. He regained contact with Dumézil, who helped him recover his academic career once he was there. He studied at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris on Dumézil's recommendation. It was estimated that it was not unprecedented for him to work 15 hours a day at the time. Christinel Cotescu, a Romanian immigrant, married Eliade for the second time. Ionel Perlea's second wife, the descendant of boyars, was his sister-in-law.

Eliade rallied with former diplomat Alexandru Busuioceanu, helping him promote anti-communist sentiment to the Western European public, together with Emil Cioran and other Romanian expatriates. He was also involved in the creation of a Romanian-language magazine titled Luceafărul ("The Morning Star") and was back in touch with Mihai ora, who had been given a scholarship to study in France and with a student in France, as well as Mariana ora's wife Mariana. He was facing material shortages in 1947, and Ananda Coomaraswamy found him a job as a French-language tutor in the United States at a school in Arizona; the deal came to an end after Coomaraswamy's death in September.

He started writing for the journal Critique in 1948, edited by French philosopher Georges Bataille. He went on a trip to Italy in the first year (he wrote the first 300 pages of his book Noaptea de Sânziene in 1952). After Henry Corbin suggested him in 1949, he worked with Carl Jung and the Eranos circle, and he wrote for the Antaios journal (edited by Ernst Jünger). Eliade debuted in 1950 at Eranos conferences, meeting Jung, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, Gershom Scholem, and Paul Radin. Eranos was described by the author as "one of the most innovative cultural experiences of the modern Western world."

He immigrated to the United States in October 1956, settling in Chicago the following year. Joachim Wach was invited by Wach's home university, the University of Chicago, to host a series of lectures. Eliade and Wach are both believed to have established the "Chicago school" in the second half of the twentieth century, which has basically established the study of religion. Eliade was named as his replacement after Wach's death, but the History of Religions professor Sewell Avery was established in 1964. Eliade's book, which appeared in 1954 with the first edition of his volume on Eternal Return, had a huge fanbase: the book has gone through many editions under new names and has sold over 100,000 copies.

Mircea Eliade, a native of Romania, became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966. He served as editor-in-chief of Macmillan Publishers' Encyclopedia of Religion, and he also lectured on religious history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1968. It was also during this period that Mircea Eliade wrote his book titled "History of Religious Thought," which collected together the main original interpretations of religious belief. He has often travelled out of the United States, including attending the History of Religions in Marburg (1960) and visiting Sweden and Norway in 1970.

Initially, the Romanian Communist Party press attacked Eliade, principally by România Liberă, referring to him as "the Iron Guard's ideologue, enemy of the working class, and a proponent of Salazar's totalitarianism." However, the regime also attempted to enlist his and Cioran's help: Haig Acterian's widow, theatre director Marietta Sadova, was sent to Paris in order to re-establish contacts with the two groups. Despite the fact that the step was planned by Romanian officials, her experiences were to be used as evidence in prosecutors' indictment of treason in February 1960 (where Constantin Noica and Dinu Pillat were the principal defendants). Eliade was also depicted as a spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service and a former Gestapo agent, according to Romania's undercover police.

He was gradually restored to home in the early 1960s, under the reign of Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej. Eliade was first approached by the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime in the 1970s in an attempt to bring him back to life. The step was prompted by officially sanctioned nationalism and Romania's ascension from the Eastern Bloc, as both events brought Eliade's fame as an asset. During Păunescu's 1970 visit to Chicago, Eliade celebrated both Pescuunescu's activism and his support for official tenets, expressing the conviction that an unprecedented occurrence occurred.

Păunescu's visit to Chicago was followed by those of nationalist official writer Eugen Barbu, as well as Eliade's friend Constantin Noica (who had since been released from jail). Eliade considered returning to Romania at the time, but fellow Romanian intellectuals in exile (including Radio Free Europe's Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu) persuaded him not to accept Communist plans. He joined other exiled Romanian intellectuals in signing a telegram in 1977 opposing the Ceaușescu regime's tightening of repressive steps. Andrei Oișteanu, a Romanian anthropologist, recalled how the Securitate unsuccessfully attempted to become a spokesperson of power in Eliade's Chicago circle around 1984.

Eliade's history was gradually revealed in public, contributing to his physical decline in later years. By then, his writing career was hampered by chronic arthritis. The last two academic awards bestowed on him were the Bordin Prize (1977) and the honor of Doctor Honoris Causa, which were given to him by George Washington University (1985).

In April 1986, Mircea Eliade died at the Bernard Mitchell Hospital. He had been hospitalized eight days earlier when reading Emil Cioran's Exercises of Admiration, and had since lost his speech function. A fire at Meadville Lombard Theological School had destroyed part of his office (an act that he had mistook for an omen). Eliade's death was described as "a mahaparanirvana" by Eliade's Romanian disciple, who recalled the scientific community's reaction to the news, comparing it to Gautama Buddha's passing. His body was cremated in Chicago, and the funeral service was held on University grounds at the Rockefeller Chapel. The lecture was attended by 1,200 people and included a public reading of Eliade's text in which he recalled the epiphany of his childhood—by Eliade's colleague at the university. Charles H. Long, co-founder of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, delivered the eulogy. His grave is on display in Oak Woods Cemetery.

Early contributions

In addition to his political essays, young Mircea Eliade wrote other books of philosophical content. They were often prophetic in tone, with Eliade hailed as a herald by many contemporary figures of his age. Eliade was 21 years old and releasing his Itinerar literary, literary critic's book "the column leader of the spiritually mystical and Orthodox youth." Cioculescu wrote about his "impressive erudition" but later claimed that it was "occasionally plethoric, poetically inebriating itself by abuse." Perssucius de Cioculescu's colleague read "the specter of war" as a result of Eliade's return to various essays of the 1920s and 30s in which Eliade threatened the world with the decision that a new conflict was imminent (while requesting that young people demonstrate their will and fully experience independence before perishing).

The 1932 Soliloquies ('Soliloquies'), one of Eliade's most notable contributions in this regard, delves into existential philosophy. George Călinescu's essay, "an echo of Nae Ionescu's lectures," traces a parallel with the papers of another of Ionescu's students, Emil Cioran's, while noting that Cioran's memoirs were "of a more exhilarious tone and written in the aphoristic style of Kierkegaard," traced a parallel, while also noting that Cioran's was "in the a Eliade's rejection of objectivity was cited by the author, who wrote about the author's expressed indifference against any "naveté" or "contradictions" that the reader may have reproach him, as well as his dismissive of "theoretical results" and mainstream philosophy in general (Eliade saw the latter as "inert, infertile, and pathogenic). "A sincere brain is unassible," Eliade said, because it denies itself to any identity with external truths.

The young writer was also careful to point out that the existence he took into account was not based on "instincts and personal idiosyncrasy," which he believed determined the lives of many humans, but not of a specific group of "personalities." "Personalities" are characterized by both "purpose" and "a much more complicated and risky alchemy," he described. George Călinescu echoed Ionescu's description of man as "the only animal that can die at home" and the duck, who "will always be a duck" no matter what it does." According to Eliade, personalities are infinity: "consciously and magnificently bringing [existence] to waste, into as many skies as possible, consistently delivering and polishing oneself, seeking ascent and not circumference."

In Eliade's view, two roads await man in this process. Both glory, whether work or procreation, and the other, asceticism of faith or magic, are aimed at the absolute, even in those instances where Eliade called the former a "abyssal experience" into which man may plunge. The critic argued that adding "a magical solution" to Eliade's choices may have contributed to his mentor's philosophy, and that it might have inspired Julius Evola and his disciples. Eliade used the word to humankind and specifically to artistic creation, quoting him as "a magical joy, the triumphant break of the iron circle" (a reflection of imitatio dei, with salvation as the ultimate aim).

Eliade, a historian of faith by profession, was a historian of faith. However, his academic publications rely heavily on philosophical and psychological terms. In addition, they contain a number of religious convictions. Eliade also suggests the existence of a universal psychological or spiritual "essence" behind all religious phenomena. Some have accused Eliade of overgeneralization and "essentialism," or even of promoting a theological doctrine under the guise of historical scholarship. However, some believe Eliade is more effective as a scholar who is willing to openly discuss sacred experience and its ramifications.

Eliade's theological scholar dismisses certain "reduced" theories. Eliade believes that a religious phenomenon cannot be reduced to a product of culture and history. Although religion involves "the social man, the business man, and so on," he continues, "all these conditioning factors, together, do not contribute to the life of the spirit."

Eliade argues against those who accuse him of overgeneralizing and of searching for universals at the expense of specifics. Every religious phenomenon is influenced by the country's particular culture and history that influenced it: Eliade claims that no religious phenomenon is uninfluenced by the specific culture and history that has influenced it:

However, Eliade argues against those who believe "man in general" behind particular men made by particular circumstances (Eliade cites Immanuel Kant as the likely ancestor of this kind of "historicism). Human consciousness transcends (is not reducible to) its historical and cultural conditioning, as well as suggesting the possibility of a "transconscious." Eliade does not necessarily refer to anything supernatural or mystical: he places religious motifs, symbols, images, and nostalgias that are ostensibly universal and whose causes cannot be reduced to historical and cultural conditioning.

Traditional men, according to Eliade, "acquire their truth, their identity, but only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality." The profane world is "meaningless," according to a traditionalist man, and a thing comes out of the profane world only by conforming to an ideal, mythical model.

He argued:

The Platonic theory of forms, according to Eliade, is "primitive ontology" that is still present in Greek philosophy. Platonism, according to him, is the "most fully developed" version of this primitive ontology.

The Structure of Religious Knowledge: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan John Daniel Dadosky argues that Eliade acknowledged "indebtedness to Greek philosophy in general, as well as Plato's interpretation of forms as "indebted to Plato's model of archetypes and repetition." However, Dadosky also says that "one should be suspicious when attempting to determine Eliade's indebtedness to Plato." Dadosky quotes Robert Segal, a religious scholar who draws a line between Platonism and Eliade's "primitive ontology": For Eliade, the best models are designs that a person or object may or not imitate; for Plato, there is a Form for everything; and everything imitates a Form due to the fact that it exists.

Eliade's book "always accepts that there is an absolute truth, the holy," says the narrator, who lives in this world but manifests itself in this world, thereby sanctifying it and making it real." In addition, traditional man's behavior gains meaning and meaning through the Sacred: "By imitating divine behaviour, a man puts and holds himself close to the gods, as well as in the authentic and the sacred." "The modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential crisis," Eliade writes. Historical events for a traditional man gain traction by imitating sacred, transcendent occasions. In contrast, the nonreligious man lacks sacred guidelines for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed; he "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, rejecting any appeal for transcendence."

From the standpoint of spiritual thought, the world has an important purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: "Myth teaches [religious man] the primordial'stories" that have constituted him existentially." Any purpose must be invented and imposed on the world by man from the standpoint of secular thought. The Sacred becomes the biggest obstacle to nonreligious man's "freedom" because of this new "existential situation," Eliade claims. Nonreligious man rejects all notions of an externally (for example, divinely) imposed order or model he must follow: the modern man "makes himself," and it only becomes fully in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. [...] He will not be free until he has killed the last god."

According to Eliade, a secular man cannot transcend his attachment to religious belief. Secular man distinguishes himself only by virtue of its faith: by refusing sacred traditions and insisting that man make history on his own, secular man's identity emerges: "He [secular man] admits himself in proportion as he 'frees' and 'purifies' himself from the'superstitions' of his ancestors'. In addition, the modern man "has accumulated a substantial stash of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals." For example, modern social activities have similarities to traditional initiation rituals, and modern novels feature mythical motifs and themes. "modern man" succeeds in obtaining an 'escape from time' comparable to mythical times' "emersion from time."

Even in secular academia, Eliade finds traces of religious thought. Modern scientists, he believes, are motivated by the desire to return to the sacred time of origins.

The rise of materialism in the 19th century, according to Eliade, pushed the religious nostalgia for "origins" to speak out in science. History of Religions, Dr. George, is one of the fields of study that was obsessed with origins during the nineteenth century: he mentions his own field of History of Religions as one of the fields that was largely ignored during the nineteenth century:

Eliade's writings refer to modern political ideologies as secularized mythology. Marxism "takes up and continues one of the great Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world's most significant eschatological myths, including the redemptive portion (the 'anointed', the'missioners', the 'innocent', the 'innocents,', who, in our own days, the proletariat), whose sufferings are invoked to change the country's ontological status. "The Golden Age" is linked to many traditions, lies at the beginning and the end of history," Eliade says, as the "precedent" for Karl Marx's attempt to live in a classless society. In the end, Marx sees Marx's belief in the triumph of the good (the bourgeoisie) over the evil (the bourgeoisie) as "a truly messianic Judaeo-Christian theology." Despite Marx's hostility toward religion, Eliade argues that his ideology derives from a religious mythology.

Eliade also claims that Nazism was based on ancient Germanic mysticism. According to him, there are some similarities between the Nazis' pseudo-Germanic mythology and Marx's pseudo-Judaeo-Christian mythology, which may have explains their differing triumphs:

Because he sorely needs sacred time and the eternal return, modern man, according to Eliade, has "traces" of "mythological conduct." Despite modern man's claims to be non-religious, he ultimately struggles to find meaning in historical events' linear sequence: "Here too..." the struggle against Time continues, with the desire to be freed from the burden of 'dead Time,' of the time that crushes and kills.

As violent and threatening historical events confront modern man, the mere fact that a tragic event has occurred and that it is part of history is of no help to those who suffer from it. Eliade addresses rhetorically how modern man can "tolerate the tragedies and horrors of history," from collective deportations and massacres to nuclear bombings—but beyond them, he sees no sign, no transhistoric meaning." He claims that, if repetitions of mythical events gave sacred value and meaning to history in the eyes of ancient man, the modern man has denied the sacred and must therefore invent value and purpose on his own. Modern man is left with "a relativistic or nihilistic view of history" and a resulting "spiritual aridity" if the Sacred fails to place a clear, objective value on historical events. Eliade's book "The Terror of History") and chapter 9 ("Religious Symbolism and the Modern Man's Anxiety") of Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, Eliade argues at length that the rejection of religious belief is a primary source of modern man's fears.

Modern man, according to Eliade, can be saved from history's "error of history" by learning from traditional traditions. For example, Eliade believes that Hinduism has some tips for modern Westerners. According to several branches of Hinduism, the historical period is illusory, and the only true truth is the immortal soul or atman within man. Hindus have therefore managed to escape history's terror by refusing to believe that historical time has been the only true truth, according to Eliade.

Eliade says that a Western or Continental philosopher may be suspicious of this Hindu interpretation of history:

However, Eliade claims that the Hindu approach to history does not necessarily result in historical revision. On the other hand, Hindu historical human life is not the "absurdity" that some Continental philosophers see it as. History is a divine creation, and one can live happily within it as long as one maintains a certain degree of detachment," Gandhi says of it: "One is devoured by Time, not because one lives in them but because one believes they are true and, in turn, one forgets or undervalues eternity." In addition, Eliade claims that Westerners can learn from non-Western cultures to see something more than suffering and death. Suffering and death are seen as a rite of passage in traditional cultures. In fact, their initiation rituals often include a symbolic death and resurrection, or symbolic ordeals followed by relief. Modern man, as well as death, can be seen as vital initiations into the next phase of one's existence, according to Eliade.

And Eliade also claims that traditional thought provides some relief from "our misunderstandable remembrance of the world's dying, or more precisely the destruction of our civilization's own civilization." Many traditional cultures have myths about the demise of their world or culture; however, these myths do not succeed "in Life or Culture"; These traditional cultures emphasize cyclical time and, consequently, the inevitable rise of a new world or civilization on the old's ruins. They are therefore secure in determining the end times.

According to Eliade, a Western spiritual rebirth can take place within the framework of Western spiritual traditions. However, he claims that Westerners will need to be stimulated by non-Western cultures in order to spark this rebirth. Eliade's book "Ethologies, Dreams, and Mysteries" says that a "genuine meeting" of cultures "may be sufficient to set the tone for a new humanism on a global scale."

Mircea Eliade sees the Abrahamic faiths as a turning point between the ancient, cyclic, and the modern, linear view of time, noting that sacred activities are not restricted to a far-off primordial age but rather the circumferential Time of the Eternal Return; in their case, sacred activities are no longer restricted to a far-off primordial age. He therefore sees Christianity as the ultimate example of a faith that embraces linear, historical time. "All history becomes a theophany" as God is born as a man and follows the course of history. "Christianity strives to save history," Eliade says. The Sacred in Christianity saves humans, but it does more than save" history and turn otherwise ordinary, historical events into something "capable of transmitting a trans-historical message."

Christianity's "trans-historical message," according to Eliade's perspective, may be the most important aid in coping with history's terror. Furio Jesi, an Italian scholar, argues that Eliade denies man the position of a true protagonist in history: not in intellectual "making history," but in man's experiences of joy and grief. The Christ story becomes the ultimate myth for modern man, from Eliade's perspective. In Christianity, God consented to historical events by being born as Christ and acknowledging the resulting suffering. Modern man can learn to deal with painful historical events by identifying with Christ. According to Jesi, Eliade sees Christianity as the only faith that will save man from the "error of history."

Traditional man sees time as an endless succession of mythical archetypes, as Eliade writes. Modern man has abandoned mythical archetypes in favour of a linear, historical age—in this context, unlike many other faiths, Christianity attaches importance to historical time. "Christianity has unquestionably been the faith of 'fallen man'," Eliade says of a modern man who has lost "the paradise of archetypes and repetition."

Robert Ellwood, who analyzed the similarities between Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Carl Jung, found that the three modern mythologists, all of whom believed that myths reveal "timeless truth," fulfilled the function "gnostics" in antiquity. The various religious traditions represented by the word "gnosticism" are based on the assertion that the climate is dangerous or inhospitable, that we are trapped in the world by no fault of our own, and that secret knowledge can save us from the world only (gnosis). Ellwood said that the three mythologists were "modern gnostics through and through."

The mythologists, according to Ellwood, believed in gnosticism's basic beliefs (even if in a secularized sense). Ellwood also believes that Romanticism, which sparked modern mythology, had a major influence on the mythologists. Romantics emphasize the fact that emotion and imagination have the same esteem as reason, so they tend to believe that political truth is less based on rational considerations than on its ability to ignite the passions, which is why political truth is "very likely to be found [...] in the distant past."

The three mythologists were alienated from the modern world, according to Ellwood. They had a different history from modern ones as scholars. And as people were influenced by Romanticism, they saw myths as a saving gnosis that offered "a return to simpler primordial times when the world's values were forged." In addition, Ellwood identifies Eliade's personal sense of nostalgia as a source for his fascination with, or even his theories of, traditional cultures. Eliade himself says he wants a "eternal return" like the one where traditional man returns to the mythical paradise: "The key preoccupation is precisely the means of escaping History, of saving myself by symbol, mythology, rite, archetypes."

Eliade's nostalgia was only enhanced by his exile from Romania," Ellwood said of his own Romanian history in later years, as did primitive folk of mythic times. He was drawn back to it, but he knew he didn't live there, and that nothing was wrong with it." Eliade's theories are influenced by nostalgia, as well as Eliade's assertion that "exile is one of the most profound metaphors for all human life." Ellwood sees signs of this in Eliade's interpretation of the "error of history" from which modern man is no longer shielded. Ellwood sees a "element of nostalgia" from earlier times "when the sacred was intact and the terror of history had barely emerged."

Early statements

In general, Eliade's public career shows him to be highly supportive of Jews, as well as the Romanian Jewish minority in particular. His early condemnation of Nazi antisemitic measures was accompanied by his caution and moderation in relation to Nae Ionescu's various anti-Jewish attacks.

Mihail Sebastian was marginalized by Romania's antisemitic laws in the 1930s and came to reflect on his Romanian friend's affiliation with the far right. Author Gabriela Adameșteanu likes Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus' subsequent ideological break. Sebastian wrote an article in his Journal, long after his 1945 death, he said that Eliade's activities during the 1930s showed him to be an antisemite. Eliade had been welcoming to him until the start of his political career, after which he severed all ties. Sebastian said it was sad. Sebastian said he took notes on their conversations (which he later revealed) in which Eliade was supposed to have voiced antisemitic views before their friendship fell apart, but Sebastian denied it. Eliade said in 1939: In 1939, Sebastian was a child in 1939.

Eliade and Sebastian's friendship suffered greatly during the war, the latter writer, who was still worried about his safety under pro-Nazi Ion Antonescu's reign, hoped that Eliade, a diplomat, would step forward in his favour; however, Eliade did not see or approach Sebastian; instead, he returned to Romania.

Mircea Eliade expressed sadness for not having the opportunity to rekindle his friendship with Sebastian before the latter was killed in a car crash later today. Eliade's statement includes an acknowledgment that he "counted on [Sebastian's] help in order to reintegrate Romanian life and culture," and she suggests that Eliade's friend might have been able to vouch for him in front of hostile authorities. Some of Sebastian's recent recordings in his diary reveal that their author was recalling their acquaintance with Eliade and that he deploded the result.

Eliade gave two specific reasons for not meeting Sebastian: one was related to his suspicion of being followed by the Gestapo, while the other was that representing a government that oppressed Jews had made him avoid meeting his former companion. The Israeli publication Toladot, a publication that claimed that Eliade, as an official representative, was aware of Antonescu's decision to implement the Final Solution in Romania and how it could impact Sebastian (see Holocaust in Romania). In addition, rumors indicated that Sebastian and Nina Mareş had a physical relationship, one that may have contributed to the clash between the two literary figures.

Eliade did not normally comment on Jewish topics because of his connection with a movement known for its antisemitism. However, an essay entitled Pilotire orbi ("The Blind Pilots"), which appeared in the journal Vremea in 1936, showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard charges against the Jewish people.

A year later, a text, accompanied by his photograph, was published as an response to Buna Vestire's investigation into the reasons for supporting the movement. An anti-Jewish viewpoint is captured in a short excerpt:

According to literary critic Z. Ornea, Eliade denied authorship of the text in the 1980s. He outlined how the magazine's editor, Mihail Polihroniade, applied his signature and picture caption to a piece that had failed to obtain Eliade's contribution; he also stated that he did not wish to publicize the issue before.

Dumitru G. Danielopol, a fellow diplomat in London during Eliade's stay in the city, later claimed that he had been "a leading light of [the Iron Guard] movement] and a perpetrator of Carol II's repression." The British Foreign Office blacklisted Mircea Eliade, alongside five other Romanians, in October 1940, as the National Legionary State was established, due to his Iron Guard links and suspicions that he was able to spy in favor of Nazi Germany. Although in Portugal, the diplomat was also planning to disseminate propaganda in favor of the Iron Guard, according to various sources. Eliade describes himself as "a Legionnaire" in Jurnal, Germany, and he refers to his own "Legionary climax" as a period he experienced in the early 1940s.

Eliade's depolitization began shortly after his diplomatic career, and he's late friend Eugène Ionesco's statement that Eliade's personal convictions, which he told his colleagues, were "over now that Communism has won" at the end of World War II. In a letter sent to Tudor Vianu, Ionesco's detailed and succinct review of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many of whom were his acquaintances and former associates. Ionesco said in 1946 that he did not want to see either Eliade or Cioran, nor that he considered them "Legionaries for ever"—in the words, "we are hyenas to one another."

Eliade's former friend, the communist Belu Zilber, who was attending the Paris Conference in 1946, refused to see Eliade, saying that the latter had "denounced left-wingers" and compared him to Cioran ("They are both Legionaries, but [Cioran] is sincere." Eliade's political activities were put into question three years later as he was planning to release a copy of his Techniques du Yoga with the left-leaning Italian firm Giulio Einaudi Editore, according to the company's left-leaning Italian company Giulio Einaudi Editore, orchestrated by Romanian officials.

Similarly, Horia Sima, who ruled the Iron Guard during its exile, was deposed by a faction within the group in August 1954, although Mircea Eliade's name may not have been revealed without his consent. Eliade, a fugitive dissident and novelist who died around the time, expressed his sympathy for the Iron Guard members in general, who he described as "courageous." However, Robert Ellwood's Eliade in the 1960s was entirely apolitical, remained aloof from "the tense politics of the United States," and "[r]eventfully never read newspapers" (an assessment shared by Sorin Alexandrescu). Journalist Ioan Petru Culianu of Eliade said that journalists had to refer to the Romanian scholar as "the great recluse." Despite Eliade's reversion from radical politics, Ellwood says he was still worried about Romania's welfare. He saw himself and other exiled Romanian intellectuals as representatives of a group that sought to "maintain a democratic Romania's history and, in particular, publish texts that had not become unpublishable in Romania."

Eliade's history, which began in 1969, became the subject of public discussion in Israel. When Eliade was asked to clarify his views, the latter used vague terms. Scholem expressed his dissatisfaction with the Romanian academic's arrival and argued that Israel would not extend a warm welcome. Culianu, Eliade's nephew, discovered and sluggishly condemned his 1930s pro-Iron Guard service; as a result, their relationship soured. Andrei Oişteanu, Eliade's other Romanian cadet, found that, in the years after Eliade's death, people who had not been aware of the scholar's past positions made Culianu less certain of his earlier positions, rather than pro-Nazi. In any case, I'm led to believe he was closer to the Iron Guard than I would have expected to believe."

Eliade wrote a letter to Culianu, saying that "it is not possible to write an objective history" of the Iron Guard and its leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. "People would only accept apology [...] or executions," he said: "Because Buchenwald and Auschwitz, even honest people cannot afford to be objective."

Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Alexandra Lagniel-Lavetta, Florin urcanu, and others who have attempted to trace Eliade's antisemitism and fascism through his career and his ties with contemporary antisemites, such as Italian fascist Julius Evola. Volovici, for example, is critical of Eliade, not just because he supports the Iron Guard but also because antisemitism and anti-Masonry were spreading in Romania in 1930s Romania. Norman Manea, the exiled novelist, published an essay in 1991 condemning Eliade's service to the Iron Guard.

Some scholars, like Bryan S. Rennie, have stated that there are no signs of Eliade's membership, active services provided, or any real affiliation with any fascist or totalitarian organisations or membership organizations, nor that there is any evidence of his continuing support for nationalist ideals after they were revealed. They also state that there are no evidence of overt political convictions in Eliade's scholarship, and that Eliade's detractors are following political agendas. Mircea Handoca, editor of Eliade's books, argues that the controversy surrounding Eliade was aided by a group of exiled writers, of whom Manea was a leading representative, was fueled by the young author's Christian values and conservative stance, as well as his assertion that a Legionary Romania might be compared to Portugal's Estado Novo. Handoca argued that Eliade changed his position after finding that the Legionaries had turned violent, and that there was no evidence of Eliade's actual membership in the Iron Guard as a political movement. In addition, Joaqun Garrigós, who translated Eliade's texts into Spanish, said that none of Eliade's texts ever showed him to be an antisemite. Mircea Eliade's nephew and commentator Sorin Alexandrescuescu himself suggested that Eliade's politics were essentially conservative and patriotic, owing to a fear of the Soviet Union, which he shared with several young intellectuals. Many other writers find that Eliade remained nonviolent despite Mircea Eliade's admiration for Gandhi.

Robert Ellwood also places Eliade's service with the Iron Guard in relation to scholar's conservatism, and connects Eliade's life with both his nostalgia and his study of primal societies. According to Ellwood, the portion of Eliade that felt drawn to the "freedom of new beginnings" that had been promoted by primal myths is the same one that attracted the Guard, with its almost mythical belief of a new beginning in the form of a "national resurrection." Eliade's name is described as a "instinctively spiritual" individual who saw the Iron Guard as a spiritual movement on a more general level. Eliade, according to Ellwood's view, was aware that antiquity's "golden age" was no longer available to secular people, and that it could be revived but not re-established. Hence, a "secondary silver age" in the last few hundred years—the Kingdom of Romania's 19th century cultural revival. The Iron Guard seemed to be a back-to-back to Romania's glory in the youth, with a movement "dedicted to the Romanian people's cultural and national renewal by appealing to their spiritual roots." Ellwood talks about the young Eliade as someone "capable of being shot up by mythological archetypes and with no knowledge of the threat that was to be unleashed."

Ellwood believes that because of Eliade's withdrawal from politics and also because Eliade's theological "corporate sacred" of the Iron Guard had been rejected later in life. According to Ellwood, the later Eliade shared the same aspiration for a Romanian "resurrection" that had prompted the early Eliade to assist the Iron Guard but he now channeled it apolitically in his efforts to "maintain the spirit of a free Romania." "Against the terror of History, there are only two options of defense: action or contemplation," Eliade says. According to Ellwood, the youthful Eliade took the latter option, hoping to change the world by taking action, while the older Eliade attempted to escape history's terror intellectually.

Eliade's own version of events, citing his role in far right politics as marginal, was found to have many falsehoods and unverifiable allegations. For example, Eliade portrayed his detention as solely owing to his Nae Ionescu family ties. He has never denied ever contributing to Buna Vestire on another occasion, answering Gershom Scholem's query. "Eliade died without ever expressing regret for his Iron Guard sympathies," Sorin Antohi said. In a short section of his Autobiography in which he addresses the Einaudi incident, Z. Ornea addresses "my misdeeds and mistakes in youth" as "a string of misadventures that will follow me through life." Ornea expressed reservations that this was the first time the Romanian academic spoke of his political involvement with a dose of self-criticism, compared to Eliade's usual refusal to comment on his positions "perpetually." "However, Eliade's pro-Legionary columns persist in the newspaper libraries; he never expressed regret for this association [with the Iron Guard], and, invariably, right up to his last writings," Sergio Vila-Sanjuán said.

Manea's Felix Culpa, manea, accused Eliade of embellishing his memoirs in order to minimize an embarrassing past. After Jurnalul portughez saw print, a secondary discussion regarding Eliade's suspected inability to dissociate with the Guard took place. Sorin Alexandrescu expressed disappointment that Eliade's "break with his far right past" was revealed in the diary. Cătălin Avramescu characterized this conclusion as "whitewashing" and said that Jurnal portughez and other writings of the time revealed Eliade's dissatisfaction with the Legionaries' Christian role in conjunction with his growing sympathy for Nazism and its pagan messages. Paul Cernat, who insisted that it was the only one of Eliade's autobiographical works not to have been revised by the book's author, concluded that Eliade's attempts to "camouflage" his political sympathies while rejecting them completely.

Eliade's old age, according to Oişteanu, regressed from his earlier positions and began to sympathize with the non-Marxist Left and the hippie youth movement. Eliade was worried about the consequences of hippie activism at the start, but his arguments, as well as their condemnation of communalism and free love, prompted him to believe that hippies were "a quasi-religious movement" that was "rediscovering Life" that was "rediscovering the sacrality of Life." Andrei Oişteanu, who suggested that Eliade's critics be divided into a "maximalist" and a "minimalist" camp (wanting to, respectively, raise or obscure the effect Legionary theories had on Eliade), argued in favour of moderation, and that Eliade's fascism must be linked to his generation's political values.

Various commentators have analyzed links between Eliade's fiction books and his political convictions, as well as Romanian politics in general. George Călinescu argued that Huliganii's totalitarian model was "an allusion to certain bygone political movements [...], sublimated in the ever so abstruse approach to death as a path to knowledge." In contrast, In contrast, Entoarcerea din rai partially focuses on a failed communist rebellion, which insists on the presence of its key characters.

Various commentators, beginning with Mihail Sebastian, took Iphigenia's tale of self-sacrifice as a positive allusion to the Iron Guard's commitment and death, as well as the bloodshed of the 1941 Legionary Rebellion. The play was reprinted by Legionary refugees in Argentina ten years after its premiere: on the occasion, Eliade himself reviewed the text for publication. Culianu's probe into his mentor's early political connections was partly triggered by reading Iphigenia.

Un om mare's special debate sparked a special discussion. On the one hand, two monikers ascribed to the Legionary chief (by, respectively, his rivalries and his followers), while the main character's name (Cucoanes) was seen as a direct reference to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and his ascension to the Legionary leader (because of the similarity). Matei Călinescu did not reject Culianu's version, but claimed that the piece was beyond political interpretations. Mircea Iorgulescu, a literary scholar and essayist, opposed the original decision, saying that there were no historical evidence to back up Culianu's assertion.

Minunata călătorie cărăbuși in țara furnicilor roșii, Eliade's main work, depicts a population of red ants living in a totalitarian society and forming bands to scream the beetles, as a potential successor to the Soviet Union and Communism. Despite Eliade's enduring popularity in Communist Romania, this book could not be published during the period because censors selectived out fragments that they found particularly problematic.

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