Love and anarchy in Romania : A critical review of Mircea Eliade's Autobiography, volume one, 1907–1937

Eliade is a problem: to at least half of today's historians of religion he embodies the discipline; to the other half he is anathema. I do not intend to review this debate here, nor to rehearse the themes of Eliade's massive oeuvre. I will, however, point over my shoulder to the mixed legacy of theoretical debts and doubts Eliade's work has inspired and try to bring them into relationship with the life story Eliade tells in the Autobiography. This review then attempts to show how Eliade's ‘life’ and ‘letters’ cohere and thus how in illuminating one we shed light on the other.     

Prologue: Encounters with Mircea Eliade and his legacy for the 21st century

To mark the centennial of Mircea Eliade, the articles in this special issue of Religion analyze various aspects of his life and his scholarship, and suggest what may be of value in Eliade's legacy for the study of religion in the 21st century. In my study, using one of Eliade's favorite terms, ‘the encounter,’ I suggest what my encounters with Eliade reveal about Eliade, his scholarship, and especially his legacy. By delineating and analyzing encounters that were remarkable, disturbing, complex, and contradictory, we may assess both strengths and weaknesses in Eliade's history and phenomenology of religion and what remains in Eliade's legacy that may be of value for the contemporary study of religion. Although Eliade's influence has certainly waned, my position is that there is much of value in his legacy, often in need of more critical reformulation, that offers a valuable critique of much of contemporary scholarship, provides valuable insights, and can serve as a catalyst allowing us to rethink our approaches to the study of religion.     

Eliade on diplomatic service in London

It was in England that Mircea Eliade started writing the volume which would be published nearly a decade later as Traité d'histoire des religions (Patterns in Comparative Religion), as attested by the book's Avant-propos de l'auteur, dated ‘Oxford 1940/Paris 1948.’ Eliade also states in his autobiography (1988, p. 84) that ‘I read, took notes, and elaborated a plan of a vast synthesis of the morphology and history of religions, a synthesis I had glimpsed instantaneously in an air raid shelter during an alarm.’ In order to recreate the historical and political environment in which Eliade conceived and began to write his fundamental theoretical book, I have sketched the history of Great Britain's early involvement in World War II, the dramatic political events in Romania during Eliade's diplomatic service in London, and the British government's intrigues that held him a virtual ‘captive’ from September 1940 to February 19411     

Rereading Mircea Eliade's Youth Without Youth, a story of suspicion and camouflage

The article argues that Mircea Eliade's 1976 novella Youth Without Youth (which has been recently turned into a film by Francis Ford Coppola) offers an intriguing literary illustration of the concept of ‘camouflage’ so prominent in Eliade's scholarly writings. Youth Without Youth, revolving around the paradoxes of aging and of (biological) time, develops as a fantastic reverie, a mysterious gnostic parable under the appearances of a work of science fiction, and ultimately becomes a sort of rebus, made up of a large number of suggested enigmas within enigmas. It is, at the same time, an opportunity for the author to revisit phantasmatically a dramatic period of his life – the year 1938. Historical reality becomes fantastic, charged with symbols and riddles. The Eliadean dialectic between the sacred and the profane is interestingly doubled in this story by a dialectic between spying and hiding, surveillance and escape, suspicion and camouflage.     

The diplomatic career of Mircea Eliade: A response to Adriana Berger

Adriana Berger has attacked Mircea Eliade's connection with the Romanian right-wing movement, the Iron Guard, or Legion of the Archangel Michael. Her article ‘Fascism and religion in Romania’, makes much of certain British Foreign Office documents which I have inspected in detail. Not only do these documents fail to corroborate Berger's conclusions but they cast real doubt on Berger's critical detachment. Her claim that Eliade was detained in England because of his political activities on behalf of the Iron Guard, and also of Nazi Germany, is without foundation. Other insinuations which she has made about Eliade's political motivations are subject to alternative interpretations. Eliade undoubtedly was vehemently nationalist in his youth and gave some support to the Legion of the Archangel Michael. However, we must constantly guard against permitting our pre-existent judgements of nationalism and fascism to dictate our reading of historical event. Even if justified, prejudice is still prejudice and is not acceptable scholarship.     

Life and Death Matters: Losing a Sense of the Value of Human Beings

The essay combines a specific and a more general theme. In attacking ‘the doctrine of the sanctity of human life’ Singer takes himself thereby to be opposing the conviction that human life has special value. I argue that this conviction goes deep in our lives in many ways that do not depend on what Singer identifies as central to that ‘doctrine’, and that his attack therefore misses its main target. I argue more generally that Singer’s own moral philosophy affords only an impoverished and distorted sense of the value of human life and human beings. In purporting to dig below the supposedly illusion–ridden surface of our thinking about value, Singer in fact often leads us away from the robust terrain of our lived experience into rhetorical, and sometimes brutal, fantasy.     

A critical examination of Michael Polanyi's conception of skills

In this paper I will consider some of the main issues in Michael Polanyi's discussion of ‘Skills’ from Chapter 4 of his book Personal Knowledge published in 1958.The concept of ‘skill’ features prominently in psychological theories of human performance in activities such as games, gymnastics, swimming and dance; such theories are often applied to other spheres of human activity in which issues about skill acquisition arise. It is not surprising to discover that skill theory is considered to be essential to the study of human movement and physical education. Physical education teachers in schools have consistently maintained that ‘skill acquisition’ is a major objective for the P.E. curriculum — see Kane 1974. Yet concepts such as ‘skill’, ‘ability’ and ‘know-how’ are constituent features of practical knowledge therefore the notion of ‘skill acquisition’ on its own will not do as a curriculum objective since all instances of skill and practical knowledge are specific to their contexts, namely, to different practical activities. If particular activities are valued in schools in the pursuit of children's learning and education it seems necessary to clarify the epistemological features of such activities in order to understand what it means to teach them and what it means for children to learn and know-how to perform them successfully. It is in these respects that the concept of ‘skill’ in different human activities should attract the interest of physical education students. In order to draw attention to major features of Polanyi's thesis on the nature of ‘skill’ I shall consider the relevance of his ideas about skill and knowledge in relation to human action theory. I suggest that misconceptions may arise in teaching and learning theories relating to ‘playing soccer’ if the basic underlying ideas about ‘skill’ in human activities are inconsistent with ideas about human action or, say, practical reasoning. It is this issue that is not, in my view, attended to by Polanyi in his discussion of ‘skill’. Thus, if my criticisms of Polanyi's ideas are shown to be valid it will be necessary, by implication that is, to exercise caution before any attempt is made to use his thesis as a basis from which to formulate ideas about teaching skills and skill acquisition. The extensive use I make of quotations from Polanyi's writings is necessary because it is towards Polanyi's use of language in his explanation of ‘skills’ that much of my criticism is directed. It is hoped that what follows may provide students of human movement and physical education with an insight into Polanyi's view of ‘skills’ in particular and to issues related to skill theory and human action in general.     

Henry Cavendish and Asperger’s syndrome: A new understanding of the scientist

Although it has recently been suggested that Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) suffered from Asperger’s syndrome (James, 2005; Sacks, 2001), there has yet to be a systematic exploration of this claim. For various reasons, Cavendish is considered here through the diagnostic framework described by Gillberg (1989), with further support from the DSM-IV (APA, 1994). The potential for such a retro-diagnosis is evident, given Cavendish’s biographers’ lament of Cavendish as the ‘incomplete man’: the oddly misanthropic man characterised by negations. Such an impression is evident in the memoirs of Cavendish’s contemporaries but finds its best expression in Wilson’s (1851) biography. With a new and cautious interpretation from an Asperger’s syndrome perspective, this fragmented picture dissipates and Cavendish emerges as a man of remarkable intellect whose syndrome stunted his social development and expression, yet so crucially enabled his research into a paradoxically catholic taste of scientific study. Topics relevant to a ‘retro-diagnosis’ are first addressed, before Cavendish is compared to Gillberg’s and the DSM-IV criteria.     

Tradition, Authority and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed into law in 1990 and since that time has been implemented in ways that merit attention from scholars of religion. This article explores the legislative history of the law, analysing Native American appeals to ‘tradition’ in their quest to establish authority over disputed human and cultural remains. After a preliminary theoretical section that sets out relevant issues and questions, the essay engages a close reading of pivotal legislative hearings and reports, with attention to uses of religious and moral language. Building upon this reading, a dual analysis of Native American ‘traditional’ rhetoric is developed that examines the persuasive features of minority-specific claims, majority-inclusive claims and the combined force of these. Next, this line of analysis is framed in comparative and historical terms through a consideration of ‘revitalisation movements’. In light of this comparison, a case is made for interpreting NAGPRA and related movements as a primary means by which Native Americans manage their relationship to modernity, acting as critical citizens who demand their rights as Indians, Americans and human beings. The essay concludes by arguing for an understanding of social and discursive boundaries that neither limits nor is limited by ‘tradition’.     

The Study of Religions in the Third Reich: A Report on Work in Progress

Translator's Note. Possible connections between the study of religions and European fascism, if not indeed Nazism, have sparked considerable discussion and debate in the English-speaking world. Consider the celebrated cases of Mircea Eliade and Georges Dumézil.By contrast, the work of German scholars of religion during the NS period has been relatively little studied. Still, there have been exceptions. Burkhard Gladigow of Tübingen has published ‘Naturwissenschaftliche Modellvorstellungen in der Religionswissenschaft in der Zeit zwischen den Weltkriegen’.¹Recently, the study of religions during the Third Reich has become the subject of an ongoing seminar at Philipps-Universität Marburg. To date, one student has declared his intentions to write a thesis on the topic. Rainer Flasche, who convenes the seminar, has also worked on the topic extensively. The following essay is a preliminary indication of his results.Flasche, born in Hannover in 1942, studied theology, philosophy, German, and the history of religions in Marburg. He has taught history of religions there since 1971, making his habilitation in 1975. His best known work isDie Religionswissenschaft Joachim Wachs(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1978).Readers may wish especially to note what emerges as the central principle of Nazi religio-historical hermeneutics: that only those who belong to a race (gender? class?) can understand it. Thus, only Germans can understand Germanic religion. The essay may also shed some light on the study of religions in Germany after the war. A reviewer of a recent book by Isaiah Berlin has noted how Berlin's lasting confidence in the liberal tradition perhaps derives from the usefulness of that tradition in Eastern Europe, where Berlin spent his formative years. In post-war Germany, the study of religions has emphasized a positivism that remains close to the sources and shuns explicit theorizing, an emphasis in which Flasche clearly concurs. The usefulness of this strategy should not be overlooked. It allowed German scholars of the NS period, but also later under communist rule in the Democratic Republic and to some extent within the confines of state-run theology programs in the Federal Republic, to work independently of and even oppose a sanctioned ideology. The strategy was not to champion competing theories but to oppose ideological claims with ‘facts’. This stance contrasts sharply with the theoretical richness that characterized German thought about religions before 1933, but—once burned, twice cautious.A note on terminology. The development of the nation-state took markedly different courses in the German and English speaking worlds. As a result, the wordVolkand the adjectivevölkischhave no entirely satisfactory English equivalents. The connotations of ‘nation’ are too limited, because the GermanVolkwas an ideal that transcended not only the principalities that dominated German political life from 1648 to 1866 but also the remnants of German glory that remained after World War I and even the extensive empire administered by Prussia from 1866 to 1918. Therefore, I have translatedVolkas ‘people’. But English ‘popular’ has quite a different sense fromVölkisch, so forvölkischI have used the adjective ‘national’ instead. Readers should keep in mind the direct verbal link between the two in the original.     

‘Fundamentalism’ Christian and Islamic

This article seeks to answer the question whether the term ‘fundamentalism’ is an appropriate label for certain Islamic movements by undertaking a detailed comparison with Protestant Christian fundamentalism, for which the term was originally coined. After an effort to identify and characterize the two phenomena, a number of similarities and differences are discussed. Among the differences is the fact that the most obvious defining characteristics in each case (Biblical inerrancy for Protestants and politicalsocial involvement for Muslims) are of little relevance to the other case. Among the similarities is a common opposition to ‘modernism’ and a tendency to stress what has been distinctive to the Protestant and Islamic traditions, respectively. The conclusion is that, while the two phenomena do have much in common, ‘fundamentalism’ is not an appropriate common label. The author prefers ‘Islamic radicalism’ for the Muslim case and tentatively suggests ‘radical neotraditionalism’ as a common label.     

Recent Defenders of Eliade: A Critical Evaluation

Several defenders of Mircea Eliade have written books maintaining that Eliade's personal life and literary and scholarly contributions are all of one piece; that one cannot understand his scholarship without understanding his personal life, fears, ambitions, religious and other commitments. Reviewed and critically evaluated are Mac Linscott Ricketts's interpretation that the essence of Eliade's scholarship can be seen in his early Romanian experiences and writings; Carl Olson's interpretation that Eliade's scholarship is essentially theological and philosophical; and David Cave's interpretation that Eliade's scholarship is essentially based on his spiritual vision of a new humanism. Interpretations of Eliade's historical consciousness and his Christianity are criticized. Next, using these three defenders and several critics, the recent controversy about Eliade's politics and the political nature of his scholarship is considered. Finally, questions are raised as to whether Eliade's defenders have blurred or collapsed certain legitimate scholarly distinctions, thus rendering his scholarship even more vulnerable to attack.     

Myth, identity and belonging: The Rishi of Bengal/Bangladesh

This essay discusses the politics and relevance of myth and myth making in relation to the subordination of Untouchables in South Asia. Through the case study of one particular group – the Muchi-Rishi of Bengal/Bangladesh, traditionally skinners, leather-workers and musicians – it is argued that ex-Untouchables do not share the ideology of caste which places them on the lowest echelon of society. This is in contrast with the case of ‘Untouchable myths of origin’ offered by anthropological research (Michael Moffatt, Robert Deliège) in South India, Tamil Nadu. However, another set of counter-myths recounted by the Rishi, centred around the figure of Ruidas, offers an alternative which allows them to gain a self-ascribed identity. Far from engaging in a ‘theological’ struggle, the idiom of religion and myth becomes for these ‘ex-Untouchables’ and subaltern groups a ‘place of resistance’ from which they can hope to better themselves also in the economic, social and political spheres, as part of their overall endeavour to achieve full human dignity. For some Rishi, this process has taken the form of a long journey from being defined an ‘Untouchable’ to becoming a Dalit.     

Intelligence, reaction time (RT) and a new ‘odd-man-out’ RT paradigm

A sample of adult Ss of reasonably normal intelligence were given an ‘IQ’ test, a series of RT tests using 0, 1, 2, 3 bits of information in a Hick paradigm and an RT task requiring choice of 1 of 3 lights as an ‘odd-man-out’ on the basis of its relative position. Negative correlations were found between both RT and measures of variation in RT and ‘IQ’ for both of the two tasks. Recent results showing no correlation between Hick slope and ‘IQ’ and no increase in correlation between ‘IQ’ and RT with increasing number of bits, are confirmed. An explanation for findings of Ss whose RT data do not conform to Hick's law is tested and found inadequate. The ‘odd-man-out’ task is found to show an effect of ‘learning’ across the period of the task, the size of the learning effect was found also to correlate with ‘IQ’, but no evidence for learning was found with the choice RT task.     

Religion and Mestrovic's postemotional society: the manufacturing of religious emotion

Work on the social theory of emotion has been growing in the last decade, but few have considered how these studies relate to the field of religion. This article is a detailed critical examination of the work of the Croatian–American sociologist Stjepan Mestrovic and his idea of ‘postemotionalism’. It is an exploration of the implications of his work for understanding contemporary manifestations of religion. It first unfolds the context of Mestrovic's work on postemotionalism and then explores the development and meaning of the term. It follows a series of tensions in the concept between spontaneous and produced emotion and seeks to show how postemotionalism fails to consider adequately religious history, which has continually involved the process of repackaging ‘past emotions’. Despite these difficulties, Mestrovic's idea of postemotionalism is seen to provide not only a way to rethink emotion and rationality in religion, but a way of re-conceptualising so-called ‘individual’ religious emotion as part of wider political constructions developed through late capitalistic markets and the technology of mass media. Mestrovic's lack of concern with religion is considered, and the work of the French sociologist of religion Danièle Hervieu-Léger on ‘chain memory’ is introduced as a way of illuminating questions of religious tradition, memory and emotion in Mestrovic's work. The final section of the paper considers the ‘revivalist’ developments of Celtic Spirituality as an example of the micro-politics of postemotional religion.