Contenido
Su obra, generalmente, se basó en algunas categorías nodales: modelos cosmogónicos del mundo, abolición de la historia por la interpretación de mitos y leyendas primitivas y el uso de la religión como explicación de hierofanías (manifestaciones de lo sagrado en el mundo). Siempre, sin embargo, estuvo cruzada por el accionar político del autor diferenciando un abanico de lecturas en torno a su producción.[5].
Las obras más importantes de Eliade, escritas en francés o inglés, incluyen El mito del eterno retorno (1949), Tratado de historia de las religiones (1949), Lo sagrado y lo profano: naturaleza de la religión (1956) y los tres volúmenes de Historia de las creencias y las ideas religiosas (1985). Publicó además una autobiografía y varios volúmenes con sus diarios, entre ellos el Diario portugués (publicado póstumamente en España en 2001), en que el autor nos descubre los avatares de su vida entre 1941 y 1945.
La vasta obra de Eliade comprende varias categorías: científica, literaria, ensayos, diarios, autobiografías y artículos periodísticos. Se puede comprender su obra científica a través de estas áreas, ideas religiosas o estos conceptos filosóficos: homo religiosus, sagrado, hierofanía, alquimia, chamanismo, yoga, símbolo, mito como una historia sagrada, el cristianismo cósmico y el tiempo sagrado.[6].
Se puede comprender su obra literaria sobre todo a través de la novela La noche de San Juan, traducida en español por Joaquín Garrigós y premiada por la Unión de Escritores de Rumania como la mejor traducción del mundo de un escritor rumano en un idioma extranjero.[7].
General nature of religion
In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is celebrated for his writings on alchemy,[8] shamanism, yoga, and what he called the eternal recurrence: the implicit belief, supposedly present in religious thought in general, that religious behavior is not only an imitation of sacred events, but also a participation in them, and thereby restores the mythical time of origins. Eliade's thinking in this regard was influenced in part by Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Nae Ionescu, and the writings of the Traditionalist School (René Guénon and Julius Evola).[9] For example, Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane draws partially on Otto's The Idea of the Holy to show how religion arises from the experience of the sacred and from the myths of time and nature.
Eliade is known for his attempt to find parallels and broad cross-cultural unities in religion, particularly in myths. Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death, has observed that "Eliade boldly argued for universals when he could have more confidently defended widely prevalent patterns." His Treatise on the History of Religions was praised by the French philologist Georges Dumézil for its coherence and ability to synthesize diverse and distinct mythologies.[10].
Robert Ellwood describes Eliade's approach to religion as follows. Eliade approaches religion by imagining an ideally “religious” person, whom he calls homo religiosus in his writings. Eliade's theories basically describe how this homo religiosus would see the world.[11] This does not mean that all religious practitioners actually think and act like homo religiosus. Instead, it means that religious behavior "says through its own language" that the world is as homo religiosus would see it, whether participants in religious behavior in real life are aware of it or not. However, Ellwood writes that Eliade "tends to overlook this last feature", implying that traditional societies actually thought like homo religiosus.
Eliade stated that “Yahweh is both kind and wrathful; The God of Christian mystics and theologians is terrible and gentle at the same time.
Eliade's perspective on religion centers on his concept of hierophany (manifestation of the Sacred), a concept that includes, but is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany (manifestation of a god).[14] From the perspective of religious thought, Eliade states, hierophanies give structure and orientation to the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of non-religious experience can only be divided geometrically: it has "no qualitative differentiation and therefore no guidance [is] provided by virtue of its inherent structure."[15] In this way, profane space does not provide humans with any pattern for their behavior. In contrast to profane space, the site of a hierophany has a sacred structure to which the religious man conforms. A hierophany amounts to a "revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the non-reality of the vast surrounding expanse."[16] As an example of a "sacred space" that demands a certain response from man, Eliade tells the story of Moses stopping and taking off his shoes before the manifestation of Yahweh as a burning bush (Exodus 3:5).[17]
Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time.[18] According to the myths, this was the time when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the structure of the world: myths claim to describe the primordial events that made society and the natural world what they are. Eliade maintains that all myths are, in this sense, myths of origin: "the myth, then, is always a story of a creation."[19].
Many traditional societies believe that the power of a thing lies in its origin.[20] If origin is equivalent to power, then "it is the first manifestation of a thing that is meaningful and valid"[21] (the reality and value of a thing, therefore, are found only in its first appearance).
According to Eliade's theory, only the Sacred has value, only the first appearance of a thing has value, and therefore only the first appearance of the Sacred has value. The myth describes the first appearance of the Holy One and therefore, the mythical age is sacred time,[18] the only time of value: "primitive man was only interested in beginnings [...] he cared little about what had happened to him, or to others like him, in more or less distant times."[22] Eliade postulated this as the reason for the "nostalgia for origins" that appears in many religions, the desire to return to a Paradise primordial.[22].