As one of the figures in the Criterion literary society ( 1933 – 1934 ), Eliade's initial encounter with the traditional far right was polemical: the group's conferences were stormed by members of A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League, who objected to what they viewed as pacifism and addressed antisemitic insults to several speakers, including Sebastian ; in 1933, he was among the signers of a manifesto opposing Nazi Germany's state-enforced racism.

Assessments of Eliade's work were in sharp contrast to one another: also in 1936, Eliade accepted an award from the Romanian Writers ' Society, of which he had been a member since 1934.

One of Eliade's best-known works, the novel Maitreyi, dwells on Eliade's own experience, comprising camouflaged details of his relationships with Surendranath Dasgupta and Dasgupta's daughter Maitreyi Devi.

Eliade's fantasy novel Domnişoara Christina, was, on its own, the topic of a scandal.

Alongside Eliade's main works, his attempted novel of youth, Minunata călătorie a celor cinci cărăbuşi in ţara furnicilor roşii, which depicts a population of red ants living in a totalitarian society and forming bands to harass the beetles, was seen as a potential allusion to the Soviet Union and to communism.

Maitreyi Devi, who strongly objected to Eliade's account of their encounter and relationship, wrote her own novel as a reply to his Maitreyi ; written in Bengali, it was titled Na Hanyate ( translated into English as " It Does Not Die ").

Mircea Eliade's novel, Noaptea de Sânziene ( translated as The Forbidden Forest ), includes references to the folk belief about skies opening at night, as well as to paranormal events happening in the Băneasa Forest.

Eliade's articles before and after his adherence to the principles of the Iron Guard ( or, as it was usually known at the time, the Legionary Movement ), beginning with his famous Itinerar spiritual (" Spiritual Itinerary ", serialized in Cuvântul in 1927 ), center on several political ideals advocated by the far right.

One of Eliade's noted contributions in this respect was the 1932 Soliloquii (" Soliloquies "), which explored existential philosophy.

Moreover, the connection between mythology and politics differs for each of the mythologists in question: in Eliade's case, Ellwood believes, a strong sense of nostalgia (" for childhood, for historical times past, for cosmic religion, for paradise "), influenced not only the scholar's academic interests, but also his political views.

Mircea Eliade's other early works include Şantier (" Building Site "), a part-novel, part-diary account of his Indian sojourn.

Eliade's short story Şarpele (" The Snake ") was described by George Călinescu as " hermetic ".

Eliade's former friend, the communist Belu Zilber, who was attending the Paris Conference in 1946, refused to see Eliade, arguing that, as an Iron Guard affiliate, the latter had " denounced left-wingers ", and contrasting him with Cioran (" They are both Legionaries, but is honest ").

**" Angajamentul politic al lui Mircea Eliade " (" Mircea Eliade's Political Affiliation "), in 22, Nr.

A work which views Hekate from the perspective of Mircea Eliade's archetypes and substantiates its claims through cross-cultural comparisons.

According to Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion, some of the Nagas of Manipur trace their ancestry from a butterfly.

The move was prompted by the officially sanctioned nationalism and Romania's claim to independence from the Eastern Bloc, as both phenomena came to see Eliade's prestige as an asset.

Păunescu's visit to Chicago was followed by those of the nationalist official writer Eugen Barbu and by Eliade's friend Constantin Noica ( who had since been released from jail ).

For instance, Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane partially builds on Otto's The Idea of the Holy to show how religion emerges from the experience of the sacred, and myths of time and nature.

Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death, notes that " Eliade argued boldly for universals where he might more safely have argued for widely prevalent patterns ".

Eliade often uses the term " archetypes " to refer to the mythical models established by the Sacred, although Eliade's use of the term should be distinguished from the use of the term in Jungian psychology.

Thus, from Eliade's perspective, the Christ story becomes the perfect myth for modern man.

In Ellwood's view, Eliade's nostalgia was only enhanced by his exile from Romania: " In later years Eliade felt about his own Romanian past as did primal folk about mythic time.

Ellwood sees evidence of this in Eliade's concept of the " Terror of history " from which modern man is no longer shielded.

Because Eliade stayed out of politics during his later life, Ellwood tries to extract an implicit political philosophy from Eliade's scholarly works.

The other characters, standing for Eliade's generation, all seek knowledge through violence or retreat from the world — nonetheless, unlike Anicet, they ultimately fail at imposing rigors upon themselves.

Despite Eliade's withdrawal from radical politics, Ellwood indicates, he still remained concerned with Romania's welfare.

Alongside the arguments introduced by Daniel Dubuisson, criticism of Mircea Eliade's political involvement with antisemitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Alexandra Lagniel-Lavastine, Florin Ţurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's antisemitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary antisemites, such as the Italian fascist occultist Julius Evola.

Because of Eliade's withdrawal from politics, and also because the later Eliade's religiosity was very personal and idiosyncratic, Ellwood believes the later Eliade probably would have rejected the " corporate sacred " of the Iron Guard.

Eliade's theory of " eternal return " describes a distinctly nonspontaneous process that depends on human behavior ; thus, it should be distinguished from the philosophical theory of eternal return ( the subject of this article ), which describes a mathematically inevitable process.

Eliade's understanding of religion centers on his concept of hierophany ( manifestation of the Sacred )— a concept that includes, but is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany ( manifestation of a god ).

Summarizing Eliade's statements on this subject, Eric Rust writes, " A new religious structure became available.

* Some authors insist on Zalmoxis ' relation with Pythagoras, stating that he has founded a mystical cult ; partly this theory may be found in Eliade's work ;

After completing his primary education at the school on Mântuleasa Street, Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arşavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, and Petre Viforeanu ( and several years the senior of Nicolae Steinhardt, who eventually became a close friend of Eliade's ).

Eliade's views at the time focused on innovation — in the summer of 1933, he replied to an anti-modernist critique written by George Călinescu:

Mariana Klein, who became Şora's wife, was one of Eliade's female students, and later authored works on his scholarship.

Anthropologist Alice Kehoe is highly critical of Eliade's work on Shamanism, namely because he was not an anthropologist but a historian.

French researcher Daniel Dubuisson places doubt on Eliade's scholarship and its scientific character, citing the Romanian academic's alleged refusal to accept the treatment of religions in their historical and cultural context, and proposing that Eliade's notion of hierophany refers to the actual existence of a supernatural level.

Many of Mircea Eliade's literary works, in particular his earliest ones, are noted for their eroticism and their focus on subjective experience.

" A specific aspect of this focus on experience is sexual experimentation — Călinescu notes that Eliade's fiction works tend to depict a male figure " possessing all practicable women in given family ".

Polemically, Călinescu proposed that Mircea Eliade's supposed focus on " aggressive youth " and served to instill his interwar Romanian writers with the idea that they had a common destiny as a generation apart.

The notion was in turn linked to Eliade's own thoughts on transcendence, and in particular his idea that, once " camouflaged " in life or history, miracles become " unrecognizable ".

One of Eliade's earliest fiction writings, the controversial first-person narrative Isabel şi apele diavolului, focused on the figure of a young and brilliant academic, whose self-declared fear is that of " being common ".

Allan himself stands alongside Eliade's male characters, whose focus is on action, sensation and experience — his chaste contacts with Maitreyi are encouraged by Sen, who hopes for a marriage which is nonetheless abhorred by his would-be European son-in-law.

Paul Cernat notes that Eliade's statement includes an admission that he " counted on support, in order to get back into Romanian life and culture ", and proposes that Eliade may have expected his friend to vouch for him in front of hostile authorities.

In August 1954, when Horia Sima, who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, Mircea Eliade's name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter — although this may have happened without his consent.

Based on Mircea Eliade's admiration for Gandhi, various other authors assess that Eliade remained committed to nonviolence.

Andrei Oişteanu, who proposed that Eliade's critics were divided into a " maximalist " and a " minimalist " camp ( trying to, respectively, enhance or shadow the impact Legionary ideas had on Eliade ), argued in favor of moderation, and indicated that Eliade's fascism needed to be correlated to the political choices of his generation.