Calling Marxism " a truly messianic Judaeo-Christian ideology ", Eliade writes that Marxism " takes up and carries on one of the great eschatological myths of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world, namely: the redemptive part to be played by the Just ( the ' elect ', the ' anointed ', the ' innocent ', the ' missioners ', in our own days the proletariat ), whose sufferings are invoked to change the ontological status of the world ".

Mircea Eliade writes, " A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = ' technique of religious ecstasy '.

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

Mircea Eliade, a professor of the history of religions, declared that myth did not hold religion back, that myth was an essential foundation of religion, and that eliminating myth would eliminate a piece of the human psyche.

" Eliade wrote about ' sky and sky gods ' when Christian theology was shaken at its very foundations by the ' death of God ' theology.

In Strabo's opinion, the original name of the Dacians was " daoi ", which Mircea Eliade in his De Zalmoxis à Genghis Khan explained with a possible Phrygian cognate " Daos ", the name of the wolf god.

* Some take the passage seriously, and consider Zalmoxis to have created a ritual of passage ; this theory is mainly supported by Mircea Eliade, who was the first to write a coherent interpretation of the Zalmoxis myth ;

* Some see in Zalmoxis a Christ figure who dies and resurrects ; this position was also defended by Jean ( Ioan ) Coman, a professor of patristics and orthodox priest, who was a friend of Eliade and published in Eliade's journal " Zalmoxis ", which appeared in the 1930s.

The most coherent and perhaps also original interpretation about Zalmoxis is due to Mircea Eliade who believes that Getae actually had a religion based upon a ritual of passage where a ritual death symbolized by the disappearance in a cavern, was followed by a ritual rebirth which was the leaving of the cavern.

The Romanian historian of religion Mircea Eliade also noted that Arada, along with Irodiada, was a name used for a Romanian folkloric Queen of the Fairies ( Doamna Zinelor ), whom he believed was a " metamorphosis of Diana ".

Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986 ) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago.

Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society Criterion.

Born in Bucharest, he was the son of Romanian Land Forces officer Gheorghe Eliade ( whose original surname was Ieremia ) and Jeana née Vasilescu.

In one instance during the World War I Romanian Campaign, when Eliade was about ten years of age, he witnessed the bombing of Bucharest by German zeppelins and the patriotic fervor in the occupied capital at news that Romania was able to stop the Central Powers ' advance into Moldavia.

As a child, Eliade was fascinated with the natural world, which formed the setting of his very first literary attempts, as well as with Romanian folklore and the Christian faith as expressed by peasants.

In parallel, Eliade grew estranged from the educational environment, becoming disenchanted with the discipline required and obsessed with the idea that he was uglier and less virile than his colleagues.

At one point, Eliade was flunking four subjects, among which was the study of Romanian language.

Despite his father's concern that he was in danger of losing his already weak eyesight, Eliade read passionately.

It was during his student years that Eliade met Nae Ionescu, who lectured in Logic, becoming one of his disciples and friends.

Finding that the Maharaja of Kassimbazar sponsored European scholars to study in India, Eliade applied and was granted an allowance for four years, which was later doubled by a Romanian scholarship.

In his Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, Eliade claims that a " genuine encounter " between cultures " might well constitute the point of departure for a new humanism, upon a world scale ".

The friendship between Eliade and Sebastian drastically declined during the war: the latter writer, fearing for his security during the pro-Nazi Ion Antonescu regime ( see Romania during World War II ), hoped that Eliade, by then a diplomat, could intervene in his favor ; however, upon his brief return to Romania, Eliade did not see or approach Sebastian.

The depolitisation of Eliade after the start of his diplomatic career was also mistrusted by his former close friend Eugène Ionesco, who indicated that, upon the close of World War II, Eliade's personal beliefs as communicated to his friends amounted to " all is over now that Communism has won ".

To evaluate the legacy of Eliade and Joachim Wach within the discipline of the history of religions, the University of Chicago chose 2006 ( the intermediate year between the 50th anniversary of Wach's death and the 100th anniversary of Eliade's birth ), to hold a two-day conference in order to reflect upon their academic contributions and their political lives in their social and historical contexts, as well as the relationship between their works and their lives.

The 1988 film The Bengali Night, directed by Nicolas Klotz and based upon the French translation of Maitreyi, stars British actor Hugh Grant as Allan, the European character based on Eliade, while Supriya Pathak is Gayatri, a character based on Maitreyi Devi ( who had refused to be mentioned by name ).

When coming upon elements he seemed to recognize from Judaism, rather than seeing these as organic forms that could have arisen independently in numerous religions ( Eliade ), Payne claimed they were derived from Judaism.

After contributing various and generally polemical pieces in university magazines, Eliade came to the attention of journalist Pamfil Şeicaru, who invited him to collaborate on the nationalist paper Cuvântul, which was noted for its harsh tones.

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.

Eliade was kept for three weeks in a cell at the Siguranţa Statului Headquarters, in an attempt to have him sign a " declaration of dissociation " with the Iron Guard, but he refused to do so.

Eliade also claimed that such contacts with the leader of a neutral country had made him the target for Gestapo surveillance, but that he had managed to communicate Salazar's advice to Mihai Antonescu, Romania's Foreign Minister.

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 ".

Together with Emil Cioran and other Romanian expatriates, Eliade rallied with the former diplomat Alexandru Busuioceanu, helping him publicize anti-communist opinion to the Western European public.

Initially, Eliade was attacked with virulence by the Romanian Communist Party press, chiefly by România Liberă — which described him as " the Iron Guard's ideologue, enemy of the working class, apologist of Salazar's dictatorship ".

In the 1970s, Eliade was approached by the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime in several ways, in order to have him return.

When Eliade was 21 years old and publishing his Itinerar spiritual, literary critic Şerban Cioculescu described him as " the column leader of the spiritually mystical and Orthodox youth.

Călinescu recorded Eliade's rejection of objectivity, citing the author's stated indifference towards any " naïveté " or " contradictions " that the reader could possibly reproach him, as well as his dismissive thoughts of " theoretical data " and mainstream philosophy in general ( Eliade saw the latter as " inert, infertile and pathogenic ").

He also recorded that Eliade applied this concept to human creation, and specifically to artistic creation, citing him describing the latter as " a magical joy, the victorious break of the iron circle " ( a reflection of imitatio dei, having salvation for its ultimate goal ).

Using this anti-reductionist position, Eliade argues against those who accuse him of overgeneralizing, of looking for universals at the expense of particulars.

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 ".

Evola, who continued to defend the core principles of mystical fascism, once protested to Eliade about the latter's failure to cite him and Guénon.

[...] Tradition was not for him exactly Burkean ' prescription ' or sacred trust to be kept alive generation after generation, for Eliade was fully aware that tradition, like men and nations, lives only by changing and even occultation.

The subsequent ideological break between him and Eliade has been compared by writer Gabriela Adameşteanu with that between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

According to Sebastian, Eliade had been friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties.

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.

Eliade provided two distinct explanations for not having met with Sebastian: one was related to his claim of being followed around by the Gestapo, and the other, expressed in his diaries, was that the shame of representing a regime that humiliated Jews had made him avoid facing his former friend.

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 ").

Eliade's other Romanian disciple, Andrei Oişteanu, noted that, in the years following Eliade's death, conversations with various people who had known the scholar had made Culianu less certain of his earlier stances, and had led him to declare: " Mr. Eliade was never antisemitic, a member of the Iron Guard, or pro-Nazi.

He noted that Eliade initially felt apprehensive about the consequences of hippie activism, but that the interests they shared, as well as their advocacy of communalism and free love had made him argue that hippies were " a quasi-religious movement " that was " rediscovering the sacrality of Life ".

The Romanian critic Mircea Eliade described him as a " genius of an amazing vastness ".

In May of that year, he met with the ousted Nicolae Rădescu, and financed him money to start issuing an anti-communist magazine titled Luceafărul ( of which philosopher Mircea Eliade was editor ).