Patterns in comparative religion (A Meridian book)

This book is a neat summation of a career, which, taken as a whole, was an amazing feat of a lifetime that will probably never be repeated again. Academia in Eliade's day was an agon of turbo charged minds who still possessed an elegant, old-style scholarly erudition. Thinking was the flower of a massive global system that could cull the best and brightest from hundreds of millions of Europeans and afford to keep them fed and comfortable, amidst enormous libraries with works collected from the biggest empires the world had known. But this discourse was still flush with confidence and hadn't yet passed into the closed, self-referential pedantry and nauseous over-specialization we often see today. This time, furthermore, was one of tremendous discovery and enthusiasm over this entire world of religions that couldn't even have been imagined before. It was a time that was witnessing--well, the few who cared to notice were witnessing--the destruction of literally thousands of ancient traditions--ancient worlds. There was a palpable feeling that we had to learn from and save some glimmer of their meaning not only to preserve mankind's heritage, but also to, perhaps, learn the truths that would save us from ourselves. Something of the zeal of this quest in captured in "Youth Without Youth," a book and movie also to be highly recommended as a commentary on the pursuit that guided Eliade's life. Eliade was one of the most Erudite thinkers in history, being familiar with the whole range of western sources from Homer and the bible to the latest results of phenomenological research, along with an admirable attention paid to the folk traditions of Europe. He had also read much of what was available from the entire rest of the world. The range of source material that Eliade had access to by his mastery of European and ancient languages was astounding. In this book its almost like he has taken a whole truckload of source materials and anthropology books, drew a mind map of the contents on a five story tall white board, and then condensed the contents into the size of a single book.

this is a must-have book for everyone interested in mythology and religion. this book defines what religion was to ancient people, and what was considered sacred to them. it covers the structure of the sacred, the sky and sky gods, the sun and sun-worship, the moon, water and water symbolism, sacred stones(why they were considered sacred), the earth/woman/fertility connection, vegetation/regeneration, the axis mundi, agriculture and fertility cults, sacred places, sacred time, the function of myths, and the structure of symbols. in this book you will find what all religions and mythologies, from all over the world, have in common. you will find the roots of all religious beliefs in this book. it is definitely worth your time to read, again and again.

God keeps directing me to powerful knowledge. Nothing is new under the sun and all of it is of worth and value. This author goes the length to be as inclusive as possible.

Eliade's place among scholars of religion is unequaled; even his detractors admit this. "Comparative Religion" exists as a scholarly discipline because of Eliade.Essentially, this is a book about religious symbolism, covering an incredibly wide range of religious traditions. I think if you read this, agree or disagree, you will never look at religions the same way again.Further, this is Eliade's most accessible and complete book.I graduated with a religious studies degree from Yale University, and read this book in the first year after I graduated. I learned nearly as much from this book alone as I did from my undergraduate education. That is a strong statement, but I mean it.

Amidst the chaotic profusion of symbols, myths, rituals and mystical perspectives of the world's religious traditions, Eliade weaves a mandela-like portrait of humankind's incredibly vital relationship with the divine, spanning several thousand years. Not for the faint of heart, this monumental work provides important insight into the often confusing psychology of the primitive religious experience; an experience characterized by perspectives charged with meaning across broad fields of associative and interdependent symbolic realms.Eliade bases his discoveries of common patterns in the global-religious-traditions upon a thematic theoretical framework. In this manner, he avoids the pitfalls latent in more common conceptions of religious experience that are defined by psychologically artificial categories created within perspectives that tend to be too narrow. Such commonly expressed and narrowly defined perspectives often stop short of understanding the limits of psychologically artificial, chronological, geographic and even ethnic categories; categories which humanity's important religious archetypes of divine experience have traditionally and absolutely transcended.In this vein, Eliade's "Patterns in Comparative Religion" also provides important material for the interpretation of dreams. I think it is no mere coincidence that both primitive religious experience and the native realm of the unconscious both display a disturbing and important tendency to buck the rules of normality that our modern conscious minds so often wish to impose upon experience. It is from the creative associative milieu of dream symbolism that humanity's religious traditions have incessantly sprung and to which one must arguably return for the most fertile understanding of the 'primitive' divine experience.Mircea Eliade's "Patterns in Comparative Religion" surely presented me with a formidable challenge, however, as with any important challenge to understanding that I have experienced, the rewards have far outweighed the difficulties encountered along the way.