Mircea Eliade: ‘Secular mysticism’ and the history of religions

This essay considers the origins of theoretical understanding in lived experience and the implications this principle might have on our understanding of Mircea Eliade’s approach to religion. It inspects possible sources of Eliade’s theoretical understanding of religion in his descriptions of his lived experience and considers whether specifically ‘religious’ experience would be most likely to be determinative. This necessitates some analysis of the relation of experience to expressions of that experience and of the iterations of the scholar using one to elucidate the other. It suggests that the scholar’s own understanding must be open to transformation rather than automatically redescribing the expressions of subjects of research. The main claim of the article is that Eliade can be appropriately termed a ‘secular mystic’ because of the effective openness that he maintains to the transformative potential of the experience of the world of the other. The Eliadean identification of the sacred and the real, far from being a normative assumption, is a principle of hermeneutical openness, comparable in secular terms to openness to mystical experience. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction: My experience of religion and of Eliade ‘Awareness of a miracle is only straightforward for those who are prepared by their personal experience and their religious background to recognize it as such. To others the ‘miracle’ is not evident, it does not exist’ (Eliade, 1978a, p. 7, my translation) The personal experience of the scholars we studymay be argued to be the root of their later theories andmethods. My own personal experience similarly constitutes my understanding and my approach. It is thus appropriate to begin with a brief outline of my own experience of religion, of the study of religion, and of the works of Mircea Eliade. I attended a traditional English grammar school, where the Lord’s Prayer was recited each morning, and I sang in the choir of my local Anglican Church between the ages of ten and 13, passing all the required examinations to earn my ruff and surplice. However, the sight of some 600 pupils mouthing ‘hallowed be thy name .’ without any comprehension did not particularly imbue me with admiration for religious institutions. The discontinuity between the marvellousmarvelous myths of the Christian faith and the reality of European history served only to cast doubt on institutional Christianity. I certainly enjoyed singing in the choir, and I appreciated the beauty, power, and nobility of church services as well as the moral rectitude of agape. However, I was unable to resolve the historicist dilemma pointed out by Eliadedgiven a God of history, for whom all things are possible, historical experience makes many Westerners unable to believe in the reality of that God and in the doctrines of the Christian Church (see Ricketts, 1988, p. 123 and Eliade, 1970a, p. 5). Miracles are against science, and infinite damnation for finite sin is * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]