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Mircea Eliade
said
The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man to the sacred.
— Ordeal by Labyrinth, Conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet (1982), p. 148
Mircea Eliade
Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago (1907–1986)
- Fame58.2
- Momentum0.0
- Wikipedia27.7K
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08
He split the world into sacred and profane and argued that myths don't just remember the divine — they participate in it. That framework, and his theory of eternal return, made him one of the most influential religion scholars of the 20th century. It also couldn't insulate him from the stain of his Iron Guard sympathies in 1930s Romania.
Biography
About
Born in Romania in 1907, Eliade became a disciple of philosopher Nae Ionescu and moved between journalism, literature, and scholarship. In the late 1930s he publicly supported the Iron Guard, a Christian fascist movement — a fact that shadowed him for decades. He served as cultural attaché to the U.K. and Portugal in the 1940s before landing at the University of Chicago, where he built his paradigms: hierophanies as the basis of religion, the division of experience into sacred and profane, and eternal return as the engine of ritual. He wrote in five languages and produced fiction across genres…
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Sourced, dated quotes from Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
said
The interpretations of Freud are more and more successful because they are among the myths accessible to modern man.
— No Souvenirs (1977) later retitled Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989), p. 117
Mircea Eliade
said
The History of Religions is destined to play an important role in contemporary cultural life.
— The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (1969), p. 3
Mircea Eliade
said
It is not without fear and trembling that a historian of religion approaches the problem of myth.
— The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (1969), p. 72
Mircea Eliade
said
Psychoanalysis justifies its importance by asserting that it forces you to look to and accept reality. But what sort of reality?
— Journal entry (7 October 1965) as published in No Souvenirs (1977) later retitled Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989), p. 269
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Fame
Stable58.2
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
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Historical24.8
Source confidence65.0
Completeness75.0
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- WikipediaHigh confidencewikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
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