The Myth of the Eternal Return

The author, Mircea Eliade, was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1907. He published in several languages (Romanian, French, English) and in a variety of fields and formats. He is primarily remembered today as a historian of religion, particularly for his contributions on the nature of religious experience. He published copious material spanning nonfiction monographs, histories, autobiographies, and fantasy novels. His most acclaimed works include The Sacred and the Profane, A History of Religious Ideas, Bengal Nights, and, of course, The Myth of the Eternal Return.

Eliade was something of a literary prodigy, publishing his first novel (and many papers) while still in adolescence. After studying philosophy at university, Eliade traveled to Calcutta, India in 1928 to study Sanskrit. He developed an interest in Gandhi’s teachings at this time, as well, especially the idea of Satyagraha, or “truth-force.” During the 1930s, Eliade was a professor at the University of Bucharest and he became increasingly associated with nationalist political groups in Romania. This eventually led to his temporary internment by the Romanian government; he was released when he became seriously ill.

Following famed sociologist Émile Durkheim, Eliade makes frequent use of the distinction between the sacred and the profane in order to explain religious experience. Among his most memorable and influential ideas is the concept of the hierophany, that is, the manifestation of the sacred within the human realm. This qualitatively meaningful event is contrasted with the profane, a place of human existence outside of the sacred realm. The division between the two realms, he claims, organized human and religious experience. It was fundamental to the sense of place within the cosmos.

When the communists neared power in Romania after World War II, Eliade went into self-imposed exile and moved to Paris, France where he taught at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. In the late 1950s, he uprooted himself once again and journeyed to the United States, becoming a professor of the history of religion at the University of Chicago. He remained in the United States for the remainder of his life and continued to work on a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Religion up to his death in 1986. Eliade’s legacy is complicated by his involvement with the Iron Guard, a fascist Romanian political organization. At the time of his death, though, he was regarded with admiration and fondness by a large community of peers.