Eliade later recounted that he had himself enlisted Zilber as a Cuvântul contributor, in order for him to provide a Marxist perspective on the issues discussed by the journal.

Their relation soured in 1935, when the latter publicly accused Eliade of serving as an agent for the secret police, Siguranţa Statului ( Sebastian answered to the statement by alleging that Zilber was himself a secret agent, and the latter eventually retracted his claim ).

They displayed his rejection of liberalism and the modernizing goals of the 1848 Wallachian revolution ( perceived as " an abstract apology of Mankind " and " ape-like imitation of Europe "), as well as for democracy itself ( accusing it of " managing to crush all attempts at national renaissance ", and later praising Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy on the grounds that, according to Eliade, " Italy, he who thinks for himself is promoted to the highest office in the shortest of times ").

On July 7 of the same year, he was received by Salazar himself, who assigned Eliade the task of warning Antonescu to withdraw the Romanian Army from the Eastern Front (" his place, I would not be grinding it in Russia ").

If an Urmonotheismus did exist, Eliade adds, it probably differed in many ways from the conceptions of God in many modern monotheistic faiths: for instance, the primordial High God could manifest himself as an animal without losing his status as a celestial Supreme Being.

He cites Eliade himself claiming to desire an " eternal return " like that by which traditional man returns to the mythical paradise: " My essential preoccupation is precisely the means of escaping History, of saving myself through symbol, myth, rite, archetypes ".

He commented that, like Gide, Eliade believed that the artist " does not take a stand, but experiences good and evil while setting himself free from both, maintaining an intact curiosity.

Eliade himself indicated that the book dealt with the " loss of the beatitude, illusions, and optimism that had dominated the first twenty years of ' Greater Romania '.

Eliade himself explained that Memoriile unui soldat de plumb was an ambitious project, designed as a fresco to include the birth of the Universe, abiogenesis, human evolution, and the entire world history.

" In Vila-Sanjuán's view, the texts reveal Mircea Eliade himself as " a Dostoyevskyian character ", as well as " an accomplished person, a Goethian figure ".

Noting that the book featured parts where Eliade spoke of himself in eulogistic terms, notably comparing himself favorably to Goethe and Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, Cernat accused the writer of " egolatry ", and deduced that Eliade was " ready to step over dead bodies for the sake of his spiritual ' mission ' ".

In Jurnal portughez, Eliade defines himself as " a Legionary ", and speaks of his own " Legionary climax " as a stage he had gone through during the early 1940s.

Ten years after its premiere, the play was reprinted by Legionary refugees in Argentina: on the occasion, the text was reviewed for publishing by Eliade himself.

It could be argued that Traditionalism has a strong, although discreet, impact in the field of comparative religion and particularly on the young Mircea Eliade, although he was not himself a member of this school.

An expert in gnosticism and Renaissance magic, he was encouraged and befriended by Mircea Eliade, though he gradually distanced himself from his mentor.

" Davidson says that while the creature may vary, the horse is fairly common " in the lands where horses are in general use, and Sleipnir's ability to bear the god through the air is typical of the shaman's steed " and cites an example from a study of shamanism by Mircea Eliade of an eight-legged foal from a story of a Buryat shaman.

As an example of " sacred space " demanding a certain response from man, Eliade gives the story of Moses halting before Yahweh's manifestation as a burning bush ( Exodus 3: 5 ) and taking off his shoes.

The short story Un om mare (" A Big Man "), which Eliade authored during his stay in Portugal, shows a common person, the engineer Cucoanes, who grows steadily and uncontrollably, reaching immense proportions and ultimately disappearing into the wilderness of the Bucegi Mountains.

Later, discussing the works of Aldous Huxley, Eliade wrote that the British author's use of mescaline as a source of inspiration had something in common with his own experience, indicating 1945 as a date of reference and adding that it was " needless to explain why that is ".

It was based on the novella of the same name by Romanian author Mircea Eliade.

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 ).

During the same period, Eliade began a correspondence with the Ceylonese-born philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy.

In Shamanism, Eliade argues for a restrictive use of the word shaman: it should not apply to just any magician or medicine man, as that would make the term redundant ; at the same time, he argues against restricting the term to the practitioners of the sacred of Siberia and Central Asia ( it is from one of the titles for this function, namely, šamán, considered by Eliade to be of Tungusic origin, that the term itself was introduced into Western languages ).

Eliade lets the reader understand that they are in fact talking about the same woman.

According to Ellwood, the part of Eliade that felt attracted to the " freedom of new beginnings suggested by primal myths " is the same part that felt attracted to the Guard, with its almost mythological notion of a new beginning through a " national resurrection ".

According to Ellwood, the later Eliade had the same desire for a Romanian " resurrection " that had motivated the early Eliade to support the Iron Guard, but he now channeled it apolitically through his efforts to " maintain the culture of a free Romania " abroad.

Z. Ornea noted that, in a short section of his Autobiography where he discusses the Einaudi incident, Eliade speaks of " my imprudent acts and errors committed in youth ", as " a series of malentendus that would follow me all my life.

An important section of the Congress was dedicated to the memory of Mircea Eliade, whose legacy in the field of history of religions was scrutinized by various scholars, some of whom were his direct students at the University of Chicago.

In his private notes, Eliade wrote that he took no further interest in the office, because his visits abroad had convinced him that he had " something great to say ", and that he could not function within the confines of " a minor culture ".

Eliade notes that some " mythological traditions " of medieval knights, namely the Arthurian cycle and the Grail theme, combine a veneer of Christianity with traditions regarding the Celtic Otherworld.

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 ".

However, Ellwood notes that Eliade " tends to slide over that last qualification ", implying that traditional societies actually thought like homo religiosus.

Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time.

Many myths, Eliade notes, " present us with a twofold revelation ":

Likewise, Eliade notes that Nazism involved a pseudo-pagan mysticism based on ancient Germanic religion.

Eliade notes that a Western or Continental philosopher might feel suspicious toward this Hindu view of history:

However, although Doniger agrees that Eliade made over-generalizations, she notes that his willingness to " argue boldly for universals " allowed him to see patterns " that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history ".

Before their friendship came apart, however, Sebastian claimed that he took notes on their conversations ( which he later published ) during which Eliade was supposed to have expressed antisemitic views.

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 parallel, according to Oişteanu ( who relied his assessment on Eliade's own personal notes ), Eliade's interest in the American hippie community was reciprocated by members of the latter, some of whom reportedly viewed Eliade as " a guru ".

Another take on the matter was advanced in 1972 by the Israeli magazine Toladot, who claimed that, as an official representative, Eliade was aware of Antonescu's agreement to implement the Final Solution in Romania and of how this could affect Sebastian ( see Holocaust in Romania ).