“All of modern philosophy, for Eliade- including science- is centered on dealing with the spiritual crisis arising from this terror of history. His key insight was this inversion of values- scientists think they are on an empirical quest to understand religion, but really, they are on a religious quest to give spiritual significance to science, in the vain hope of deriving ought from is. We are not experiencing progress, but rather, retreat from higher truth. These profane philosophers have demonstrated empirically that man lives by bread alone, and they are starving.“
this is a brilliant insight
I am reminded of Whitehead’s quip:
“Scientists, animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless, constitute an interesting subject for study.”
Eliade turns the spiritual assumptions of progressive man on their head. His refinement is the polish on a whitened sepulcher. Worse, he knows this, and it fuels his rage at Tradition.
“Without conscious rituals of loss and renewal, individuals and societies lose the capacity to experience the sorrows and joy that are essential for feeling fully human. Without them life flattens out, and meaning drains from both living and dying. Soon there is a death of meaning and an increase in meaningless deaths.”
"There was also the incipient awareness of linear time, the idea that events did not cycle, but began and ended, with all the impermanence that implied."
Interesting that this leads to "terror."
I recall reading Stanley Jaki, who covers topics of interest you, in case you don't already know him, who dealt with this, but had a different assessment. To Fr. Jaki, a universe of cyclic, eternal returning crushed the human soul because of the futility of all human action. This led to spiritual hopelessness and despair. As Fr. Jaki tells it, or so I recall it, the breakthrough to linear time was liberating. Life and history had beginning, an end, and a purpose. This was specifically the Biblical God of the Jews and Christians, the creator ex nihilo, who blew apart the cosmic wheel and gave humanity a purpose and goal.
Fr. Jaki was a physicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, as well as being a Roman Catholic priest.
I am not sure which book I am recalling, but I know I read the following three:
Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe.
The Road of Science and the Ways to God
The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origins
“The educated classes of society, applying reason to ritual, stripped themselves of access to that more intimate, intuitive relationship with the sacred their forebears had enjoyed.”
So... was the Allegory of the Cave the first recorded instance of predictive programming?? Was Plato the OG puppet master?? 🤯
I will say this: when someone asks the intended rhetorical question of whether you'd be happier living in "ancient times," I answer, I don't know, because how am i to know whether those ancient peoples weren't happier and less stressed in a world still enchanted.
One implication of Eliade’s thought that I didn’t get into is that the distinction between ancient and modern man collapses as anything other than a generality. Anyone in any time can live a life oriented towards either the sacred or the profane, depending on the inner work he is prepared to do. The disenchantment of the world is an illusion; much like the disappearance of a parent during peek-a-boo. The higher reality is still there, we simply need to open our eyes to it. In that sense, one can be closer to “ancient man” than one’s modern peers, and happy in the same way.
I have always had trouble finding my way to the sacred or seeing the world as enchanted, which to me means full of mystery and miracle. I wonder if you agree that the degree of difficulty is higher for us in 2023 AD vs. 2023 BC.
When people ask me that, I always think about Exodus. The Israelites were led around by miraculous pillars of cloud and fire, they were miraculously fed whenever they needed it, they watched Aaron's staff sprout buds, they saw Moses part the Red Sea. And yet, all they did was complain, and the first chance they got, they turned on the God who sustained them for a creation of their own hands. I don't think it's about the environment; I think it's about one's willingness to open oneself up to the possibilities beyond immediate sense experience, to accept the reality that there are higher thinks, and to humble oneself enough to be willing to be led to them. Because it's a movement from what is easier to know to what is harder, it involves fear, which in turn leads to rationalization (of which we are all guilty). It's why Christ said the Kingdom of Heaven is for those who think like children, since they are impatient with inauthenticity and long for the real, until we adults condition that out of them.
I would just add that Christianity makes no sense without Judaism. From the Xn point of view, Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills all of the promises of the Old Covenant.
“It’s the very opposite of the woke mind-virus, the inception like idea that grows- under the right conditions- into a full on epiphany: the world you see is not as real as the one you don’t, and reality is nested and contingent on higher things.”
It was so good to read this: what you describe is what took place for me! In the 90s my duo gave a concert at the Romanian Cultural Center in New York; they sent us away with a pile of books on comparative mythology, all inspired by Eliade. Over many years, the seed took root and grew.
I think the most important thing to know is what tribal peoples express when they say “we do this because so-and-so did it in the beginning”. Our lives can participate in a higher life. If we know this, we have a chance.
Romania in the early 20th century contributed so much: not only Eliade, but the composer and violinist George Enescu, the pianists Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil, and interesting philosophers as well. Perhaps this was because the nation still had a feudal elite, but was beginning to modernize. For a moment, it had some of the advantages of both worlds.
* Also--and I know of course that this isn't really the place to ask, but as far as I can tell there's no private messaging on substack--I'm interested to know whether you've seen the 2019 film called The King, a revisionist retelling (ie it's all made up) of the life of Henry V. I reckon it may well be the most evil film ever made, yet I've seen nothing written on it in...our circles.
I haven't seen it, but from the description I read online it seems like a heavily fictionalized but not especially groundbreaking biopic- young king has to learn hard truths about power and intrigue. It's not especially different from the Shakespeare play, from what I can gather. What do you find objectionable about it?
* It's a nihilistic deboonking of a canonical work of art and a great English king and his victories. Henry (‘Hal’) is depicted as merely a peacenik who fights, when necessary, in a basely efficient way almost as an act of revenge against the very idea of combat itself. His war is ultimately revealed (by his stunnng and brave French bride) as the result of a mere trick played on him by his advisor. As is usual in such cases the implication is ‘this is how it REALLY was’. It’s a sad fact of our modern condition of disenchantment that the least glorious depiction of any historical event is always regarded as the most ‘accurate’. The filmmakers of course know this and play on it dishonestly. However, as you say, the film is nearly all fiction. I find this (overarching) aspect of the film its most hateful.
* Henry's stirring speech at Agincourt is reduced from a glorious, rousing rallying of countrymen and kin to a pragmatic plea merely to see things through. At its conclusion nobody cheers but merely puts on his helmet while looking scared out of his wits.
* Agincourt itself is a squalid infantry hack in the mud under humid skies in which the main cause of death seems to be asphyxiation in the crush. The film is very effective in conveying the fact that it thinks the Middle Ages, and everyone in them, stank bodily. A blue-grey filter is applied relentlessly. There''s not much in the way of sunny days, gracious ladies, bright green fields with banners and pavilions etc. (see BAP's review of The Last Duel).
* The French Dauphin (Robert Pattinson in a longish blond wig) is vain, cruel and vicious. To prevent bloodshed, not for honour in the old IE tradition, he is challenged to single combat by Henry (scrawny Jewish twink Timothee Chalamet as a world-weary hedonist and then reluctant king). He first refuses, then fronts up as the battle turns against the French. He dismounts in full 15th c. plate armour but can't keep his footing in the mud. After slipping and falling several times he is mocked and brutally hacked to death by the English, with Henry's permission.
* Interestingly all the actors are huwhite (Jared Taylor pronunciation used advisedly), with no truly anachronistic casting choices that I could see. This of course makes it all the more effective as an exercise in deboonking, because normies are more likely to think ‘Aha! They’re REALLY showing things as they were!’
* Again: the actor chosen to play Henry is Jewish; I daresay no English king ever looked like Timothee Chalamet. I can see no non-mischievous reason behind this casting decision. The blond Robert Pattinson is an evil coward. It’s all so tiresome…
* The dreary cello-centric music (see also e.g. Sicario)...sieges of French castles are accompanied by these dirges, as trebuchets near-silently launch their flaming artillery at the walls. It’s difficult to describe the effect this cinematic approach had on me. Suffice it to say that as a Sensitive Young Man I found it rather demoralising.
Maybe it doesn’t *seem* so bad from this description (there having been no shortage of cinematic demoralisation rituals produced in recent times). If so, it’s because of the limits of my powers of description. You’d really have to see it yourself. But you’re better off without it. The ending is horrible too.
“All of modern philosophy, for Eliade- including science- is centered on dealing with the spiritual crisis arising from this terror of history. His key insight was this inversion of values- scientists think they are on an empirical quest to understand religion, but really, they are on a religious quest to give spiritual significance to science, in the vain hope of deriving ought from is. We are not experiencing progress, but rather, retreat from higher truth. These profane philosophers have demonstrated empirically that man lives by bread alone, and they are starving.“
this is a brilliant insight
I am reminded of Whitehead’s quip:
“Scientists, animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless, constitute an interesting subject for study.”
Eliade turns the spiritual assumptions of progressive man on their head. His refinement is the polish on a whitened sepulcher. Worse, he knows this, and it fuels his rage at Tradition.
“Without conscious rituals of loss and renewal, individuals and societies lose the capacity to experience the sorrows and joy that are essential for feeling fully human. Without them life flattens out, and meaning drains from both living and dying. Soon there is a death of meaning and an increase in meaningless deaths.”
Nailed it.
"There was also the incipient awareness of linear time, the idea that events did not cycle, but began and ended, with all the impermanence that implied."
Interesting that this leads to "terror."
I recall reading Stanley Jaki, who covers topics of interest you, in case you don't already know him, who dealt with this, but had a different assessment. To Fr. Jaki, a universe of cyclic, eternal returning crushed the human soul because of the futility of all human action. This led to spiritual hopelessness and despair. As Fr. Jaki tells it, or so I recall it, the breakthrough to linear time was liberating. Life and history had beginning, an end, and a purpose. This was specifically the Biblical God of the Jews and Christians, the creator ex nihilo, who blew apart the cosmic wheel and gave humanity a purpose and goal.
Fr. Jaki was a physicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, as well as being a Roman Catholic priest.
I am not sure which book I am recalling, but I know I read the following three:
Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe.
The Road of Science and the Ways to God
The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origins
I also read his autobiography:
A Mind's Matter: An Intellectual Autobiography
“The educated classes of society, applying reason to ritual, stripped themselves of access to that more intimate, intuitive relationship with the sacred their forebears had enjoyed.”
So... was the Allegory of the Cave the first recorded instance of predictive programming?? Was Plato the OG puppet master?? 🤯
Thanks. That was a challenging essay.
I will say this: when someone asks the intended rhetorical question of whether you'd be happier living in "ancient times," I answer, I don't know, because how am i to know whether those ancient peoples weren't happier and less stressed in a world still enchanted.
One implication of Eliade’s thought that I didn’t get into is that the distinction between ancient and modern man collapses as anything other than a generality. Anyone in any time can live a life oriented towards either the sacred or the profane, depending on the inner work he is prepared to do. The disenchantment of the world is an illusion; much like the disappearance of a parent during peek-a-boo. The higher reality is still there, we simply need to open our eyes to it. In that sense, one can be closer to “ancient man” than one’s modern peers, and happy in the same way.
I have always had trouble finding my way to the sacred or seeing the world as enchanted, which to me means full of mystery and miracle. I wonder if you agree that the degree of difficulty is higher for us in 2023 AD vs. 2023 BC.
Thanks for making me think!
When people ask me that, I always think about Exodus. The Israelites were led around by miraculous pillars of cloud and fire, they were miraculously fed whenever they needed it, they watched Aaron's staff sprout buds, they saw Moses part the Red Sea. And yet, all they did was complain, and the first chance they got, they turned on the God who sustained them for a creation of their own hands. I don't think it's about the environment; I think it's about one's willingness to open oneself up to the possibilities beyond immediate sense experience, to accept the reality that there are higher thinks, and to humble oneself enough to be willing to be led to them. Because it's a movement from what is easier to know to what is harder, it involves fear, which in turn leads to rationalization (of which we are all guilty). It's why Christ said the Kingdom of Heaven is for those who think like children, since they are impatient with inauthenticity and long for the real, until we adults condition that out of them.
I would just add that Christianity makes no sense without Judaism. From the Xn point of view, Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills all of the promises of the Old Covenant.
Yes, Eliade was great. “The Forge and the Crucible.” I like Father Seraphim Rose’s “Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age.”
“It’s the very opposite of the woke mind-virus, the inception like idea that grows- under the right conditions- into a full on epiphany: the world you see is not as real as the one you don’t, and reality is nested and contingent on higher things.”
It was so good to read this: what you describe is what took place for me! In the 90s my duo gave a concert at the Romanian Cultural Center in New York; they sent us away with a pile of books on comparative mythology, all inspired by Eliade. Over many years, the seed took root and grew.
I think the most important thing to know is what tribal peoples express when they say “we do this because so-and-so did it in the beginning”. Our lives can participate in a higher life. If we know this, we have a chance.
Romania in the early 20th century contributed so much: not only Eliade, but the composer and violinist George Enescu, the pianists Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil, and interesting philosophers as well. Perhaps this was because the nation still had a feudal elite, but was beginning to modernize. For a moment, it had some of the advantages of both worlds.
Thank you so much for your writing!
The Epiphany of Eliade''s youth is at the core of Orthodox Theology.
https://substack.com/profile/100124894-steven-berger/note/c-46163955
* Also--and I know of course that this isn't really the place to ask, but as far as I can tell there's no private messaging on substack--I'm interested to know whether you've seen the 2019 film called The King, a revisionist retelling (ie it's all made up) of the life of Henry V. I reckon it may well be the most evil film ever made, yet I've seen nothing written on it in...our circles.
If you've seen it, what do you think?
I haven't seen it, but from the description I read online it seems like a heavily fictionalized but not especially groundbreaking biopic- young king has to learn hard truths about power and intrigue. It's not especially different from the Shakespeare play, from what I can gather. What do you find objectionable about it?
Oh it's different alright...
* It's a nihilistic deboonking of a canonical work of art and a great English king and his victories. Henry (‘Hal’) is depicted as merely a peacenik who fights, when necessary, in a basely efficient way almost as an act of revenge against the very idea of combat itself. His war is ultimately revealed (by his stunnng and brave French bride) as the result of a mere trick played on him by his advisor. As is usual in such cases the implication is ‘this is how it REALLY was’. It’s a sad fact of our modern condition of disenchantment that the least glorious depiction of any historical event is always regarded as the most ‘accurate’. The filmmakers of course know this and play on it dishonestly. However, as you say, the film is nearly all fiction. I find this (overarching) aspect of the film its most hateful.
* Henry's stirring speech at Agincourt is reduced from a glorious, rousing rallying of countrymen and kin to a pragmatic plea merely to see things through. At its conclusion nobody cheers but merely puts on his helmet while looking scared out of his wits.
* Agincourt itself is a squalid infantry hack in the mud under humid skies in which the main cause of death seems to be asphyxiation in the crush. The film is very effective in conveying the fact that it thinks the Middle Ages, and everyone in them, stank bodily. A blue-grey filter is applied relentlessly. There''s not much in the way of sunny days, gracious ladies, bright green fields with banners and pavilions etc. (see BAP's review of The Last Duel).
* The French Dauphin (Robert Pattinson in a longish blond wig) is vain, cruel and vicious. To prevent bloodshed, not for honour in the old IE tradition, he is challenged to single combat by Henry (scrawny Jewish twink Timothee Chalamet as a world-weary hedonist and then reluctant king). He first refuses, then fronts up as the battle turns against the French. He dismounts in full 15th c. plate armour but can't keep his footing in the mud. After slipping and falling several times he is mocked and brutally hacked to death by the English, with Henry's permission.
* Interestingly all the actors are huwhite (Jared Taylor pronunciation used advisedly), with no truly anachronistic casting choices that I could see. This of course makes it all the more effective as an exercise in deboonking, because normies are more likely to think ‘Aha! They’re REALLY showing things as they were!’
* Again: the actor chosen to play Henry is Jewish; I daresay no English king ever looked like Timothee Chalamet. I can see no non-mischievous reason behind this casting decision. The blond Robert Pattinson is an evil coward. It’s all so tiresome…
* The dreary cello-centric music (see also e.g. Sicario)...sieges of French castles are accompanied by these dirges, as trebuchets near-silently launch their flaming artillery at the walls. It’s difficult to describe the effect this cinematic approach had on me. Suffice it to say that as a Sensitive Young Man I found it rather demoralising.
Maybe it doesn’t *seem* so bad from this description (there having been no shortage of cinematic demoralisation rituals produced in recent times). If so, it’s because of the limits of my powers of description. You’d really have to see it yourself. But you’re better off without it. The ending is horrible too.
haha the captions--again
Always interesting reading about Eliade; I really should get around to reading something *by* Eliade one of these days.
Another excellent article, loved this one learnt a lot as always mon ami.