Occultism, Witchcraft & Cultural Fashions: Essays in Comparative Religion

by Mircea Eliade

In the period domoninated by the triumphs of scientific rationalism, how do we account for the extraordinary success of such occult movements as astrology or the revival of witchcraft? From his perspective as a historian of religions, the eminent scholar Mircea Eliade shows that such popular trends develop from archaic roots and periodically resurface in certain myths, symbols, and rituals. In six lucid essays collected for this volume, Eliade reveals the profound religious significance that lies at the heart of many contemporary cultural vogues.

Since all of the essays except the last were originally delivered as lectures, their introductory character and lively oral style make them particularly accessible to the intelligent nonspecialist. Rather than a popularization, Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions is the fulfillment of Eliade's conviction that the history of religions should be read by the widest possible audience.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, History, Witchcraft, Mythology, Occult, Anthropology

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Romanian-born historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, professor at the University of Chicago, and one of the pre-eminent interpreters of world religion in the last century. Eliade was an intensely prolific author of fiction and non-fiction alike, publishing over 1,300 pieces over 60 years. He earned international fame with LE MYTHE DE L'ÉTERNAL RETOUR (1949, The Myth of the Eternal Return), an interpretation of religious symbols and imagery. Eliade was much interested in the world of the unconscious. The central theme in his novels was erotic love.

Reviews

[Suzanne Mot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mircea Eliade is one of the most famous Romanian authors, historians and such, although he spent most of his life outside Romania(Chicago, India etc). He wrote a most extensive piece of work about "The history of religions".
About "Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions" I could write for hours. This book is portraying culture and religion all over the world along more than 2000 years, in the blink of an eye. His technique of zooming in/out certain subjects is also quite spectacular. For example from an general subject of how people, even from ancient times started to orientate their cities and surroundings based on some sort of cosmogonic model (of city building), which always has a middle point( basically it shows how for religious people disorder and chaos can prevail if they don't have a center point in this homogenous Universe;and that is shown in the way they build cities, with a temple always in the middle of the city, with some simbolic towers and facing East etc). From this "zoom out" perspective, he starts to give examples all over the world, Iran, Thailand, Brazil etc.

The book has many different cultural themes, the notion of death, occultism and esotericism, influences on famous authors(many french authors were into occultism for example), different groups of different systems of belief(and it shows how this particular system of belief came about). Moreover, he really puts emphasis on some famous philosophers and how they got their ideas based on certain myths and so on.
It is really fascinating how he manages to find so much information from different sources and his analytic spirit always puts an emphasis on how a certain movement occured in similar times in different regions of the world. He describes and analyzez such phenomena from an objective point of view and doesn't leave the impression that he clings to any of these ideas developed by the humand mind across centuries.

It is a really worthwhile reading for anyone who is into experiencing certain misteries of life or just wants to have more in-depth knowledge of "the beginning of it all". I rated it with 4 stars because it is not the kind of book one gets attached to, but it is rather very informative and excellent in doing so.

[Berfin Kanat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Güzel, bilgilendirici bir kitap. New Age akımına dair aktarımlar, belli başlı eski inanç sistemlerinde cadılık ve büyücülük üstüne makalelerden oluşuyor. Asıl okuma sebebim okült tarikatlar hakkında Eliade gözüyle bilgi sahibi olmaktı. Bununla ilgili bir bölüm var. Nedense temel cemiyetler hakkında bilgi vermekten kaçınmış gibi geldi, üstünkörü isimler geçiyor. Diğer bölümler de bilgilendirici.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essas luzes são experimentadas pelos contemplativos durante suas meditações de ioga. Não se pode duvidar do caráter sensorial de tais fotismos extáticos. Podemos citar inúmeros exemplos análogos de documentos que descrevem experiências de luz interior, naturais ou provocadas por drogas. Dessa forma, devemos enfatizar a qualidade sensorial das luzes místicas: elas são autênticos fenômenos psíquicos, ou seja, não são deliberadamente "imaginadas" ou racionalmente criadas e classificadas a fim de se construir um "sistema" cosmológico ou antropológico.

Como pode-se ver, um Eliade longe de seu auge ainda é um grande Eliade.

[Joseph F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 6 essays written by one of the 20th century's most noted scholar of the history of religions. Eliade sheds some interesting opinions on these topics.
The only problem is that only 3 of the essays really deal with what the book purports to be about.
The other 3 essays, though interesting (especially the essay on death!), don't deal directly with the occult or witchcraft.
I think they were thrown in to make this publication book length.
The writing is scholarly, but readable to the educated layperson.

[Aitziber Madinabeitia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ocultismo, brujería y modas culturales es una compilación de articulos escritos a partir de notas preparadas para conferencias a lo largo de la vida del autor. Esta particuliradad le da al conjunto del libro un estilo literario diferente, mucho más "oral" que otros textos de Eliade o sus contemporáneos, lo cual puede ser de agradecer, a pesar de que la tendencia a utilizar lenguaje siempre técnico, como profesor universitario, siempre estará presente.
Aunque hay que "perdonarle" el ser una obra antigua (las conferencias a las que se refiere fueron dadas entre 1950 y 1970) hay que reconocerle un valor intrínseco como recuperación de un material que hubiera de otro modo sido perdido. Son de especial interés los capítulos 1, 4 y 5, que precisamente son lo más centrados en la temática del título, y que desarrollan razones ulteriores al pasado boom ocultista y de nacimiento de los "nuevos movimientos religiosos" de los años 70. Si no todo el libro, al menos recomendaría a todo interesado en las religiosidades y en el esoterismo que se repasase estos capítulos, que pueden dar pie a reflexiones no poco interesantes sobre los propios caminos del ser humano postmoderno.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

2016: Although well worth a second read, I liked Eliade's essays a little less the second time around. Perhaps it was the very density and erudition that put me off this time.

2012: This small collection of dense and erudite essays is quite fascinating. My own lack of familiarity in the esoteric terms sent me to the dictionary multiple times, making the reading all the more interesting. I must take issue with the final essay, however, for Eliade's use of terms from Hindu/Indian/Iranian/etc culture which confused and distracted me. The bizarre sexual practices in this one was annoying but hardly the author's fault.

[Oana Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adevărul e că din cel de-al șaselea eseu de religie comparată din cartea asta n-am înțeles mai nimic, nici măcar numele oamenilor despre care era vorba. Din celelalte eseuri în care era vorba despre chestii din Germania, Franța, România (deci Europa) am înțeles cam tot, însă al șaselea m-a băgat în ceață complet. Somehow, cunoștințele mele despre Budism sunt undeva la 0%. Totuși, l-am citit și pe ăla, buchisind cuvintele indiene ca în clasa întâi. Might be useful one day. (pe spatele cărții scrie că al șaselea eseu a fost scris pentru o revistă de specialitate, însă eu m-am supraestimat din nou)

[lisa_emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very much into reading Eliade during this height of my "comparative religion studies" era. His work seemed nuanced and more carefully researched than Campbell's, but just as accessible.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

heyyy this guy seems pretty smart, idk tho

[Iris Aurelia]

"Gayet iyi bilindiği gibi, insanın tanrısal bir buyruğu ihmal etmesi sonucu ölümün dünyaya geldiği açıklamasına yalnızca birkaç mitte rastlarız. Ölümü şeytani bir varlığın zalim ve keyfi edimine bağlayan mitlerse daha yaygındır."

akademik bir kitabı duygusal yorumlamak istemiyordum ama mircea eliade'nin kalemi bana dokunuyor. ölüm gerçeği, hayatın akışında bir anda duraklayıp kanımızı donduran ve bununla nasıl başa çıkabileceğimizi bilemediğimiz bir fenomen oldu. neden geldiğimizi artık düşünmeyi bırakmışken -çünkü çok havalı kuzey martıları var- şimdi nereye gideceğiz-neye dönüşeceğiz- bulantısı sardı uzayı. aslında temel sorusu bu olmasaydı o da din tarihçisi olmazdı diye düşünüyorum.
saçma ve anlamsız bir dünyaya fırlatılmış olmak bizi bir 0 noktası arayışı içerisine soktu, temel korkularımız bizi yaratıcı olmaya itti. hayal gücümüz bu yüzden çok büyüleyici. ölümden sonraki hayat için birsürü hayalimiz varmış mesela. sonrasını bilemiyor olmanın yarattığı buhranı kökenine inmekten keyif almaya çevirdim ve bunun hayatımda yarattığı değişimi anlatabilmem mümkün değil. işte bu yüzden aslında benim için özel bir yazar kendisi. keşke yaşıyor olsaydı ona ulaşmak için her şeyi yapardım. yuh bir de ağlasaydım:(

[Andreea-Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pe Mircea Eliade l-am descoperit în liceu prin intermediul „Romanului adolescentului miop”, dar și al operelor precum „Domnișoara Christina”, „Nuntă în cer”, „Maitreyi”, „La Țigănci” și lista poate continua.
Deși în școlile din Romania romanele sale de beletristică au mai multă popularitate, acest lucru nu a constituit punctul culminant al activității sale literare.
Popularitatea sa internațională este și a fost motivată de activitatea ca profesor de istorie al religiilor începută în anul 1957, din cadrul Universității din Chicago, și de cercetările și publicațiile, extrem de bine documentate, având ca obiect același subiect.
„Ocultism, vrăjitorie și mode culturale” poate fi văzută ca o inițiere în istoria religiei, iar dacă vă interesează subiectul vă recomand să continuați cu „Istoria credințelor si ideilor religioase”.

https://andreeajuvina.ro/ocultism-vra...

[Liz Kittencat · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡¡MAGNIFICO!!
Escrito de forma sencilla (para un hombre de su bagaje cultural que leía 5 idiomas, entre ellos el sancrito, y hablaba tres), asequible a todos,extremadamente interesante. Un clásico imprescindible para los que estudiamos Historia de las Religiones.

[Sveta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Очень много самоцитирования. Но Элиаде по-прежнему свет очей моих. Надо миф о вечном возвращении перечитать.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

See later review of May 2016

[Jeffrey Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the 1970s, the most important original work of the historian of religions Mircea Eliade –
his studies of alchemy, initiation, shamanism, yoga, his explorations of cyclical time (The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History) and the Sacred and the Profane – were behind him. Much of the monumental History of Religious Ideas, which he published in this decade, was a summary of topics he had discussed in more detail in his earlier works and, to some degree, a chronological counterpart to his Patterns in Comparative Religion.
But this little gem of a book, a collection of essays and lectures, published in 1976, stands out for me, personally, because it was the first book of Eliade’s that I ever read – after being turned on to it by a friend who was studying anthropology – and it led me to seek out everything he had published in English, before taking on those works (mainly fiction) only available in French translation (my Romanian is a bit rusty).
If it was my introduction to Eliade, it should also function as a gateway for anyone wishing to enter his world of myth and symbol, not least because it contains some of his most accessible, least academic, but always scholarly, writing – and also because the topics he covers (especially the modern craze for the occult and esoteric) are still enormously popular (as Mind, Body and Spirit), though often for all the wrong reasons.
In the opening chapter, Eliade attempts to explain the phenomenal success of the book The Morning of the Magicians (1960) and the magazine which one of its authors launched from the proceeds of the bestseller. He contrasts the dreariness of an intellectual milieu dominated by Marxism and Existentialism, with the escape from history offered by an “optimistic and holistic outlook which coupled science with esotericism”.
A similar exaltation of nature and life over our historical condition, Eliade considers, explains the popularity of Teilhard de Chardin. My only encounter with the vogue of Teilhard came when I was a schoolboy in the Sixties and two of his disciples came to my Catholic Grammar School to give a talk about him. Most of it was, and remains, over my head. But I do remember a pithy saying: “What is matter? Never mind. What is mind? No matter.” You could go mad pondering that one!
But frankly, it was the chapters on Nazi occultism in The Morning of the Magicians which really got me going when I first read it (in the Valley of the Mzab in Algeria in the late Seventies, as it happens). Nevertheless, I think Eliade was on the right track when he said that what that book and those of Teilhard – along with Levi-Strauss, whose structural anthropology led me on to Eliade in the first place – have in common, is that they present us with a mythology of matter which points hopefully to a “charismatic cosmos” – and that must be a good thing, surely!
In complete contrast with the optimism of those writers is the cosmological pessimism of the metaphysician René Guénon, whom Eliade discusses in his lecture on ‘The Occult and the Modern World.’ To Guénon, we are living in the final days of the Kali Yuga, the Iron Age, which explains “the irremediable decadence of the Western world … there is no hope for a cosmic or social renovatio. A new cycle will begin only after the total destruction of the present one.” Great! Although I must admit that, by the Eighties, when I first read Eliade, my own Seventies optimism had given way to nuclear and environmental apocalypticism.
This was also my first introduction to Guénon, whose books were then difficult to obtain. I was later given a copy of Lord Of The World, in which Guénon explores the Hyperborean mythology which influenced much of the nonsense about the underground realm of Agarttha found in books like The Morning of the Magicians – a circle seemed to be closing. But it was only when I read Eliade’s journals that I realised how big an influence Guénon had been on the young Romanian – and to what extent Eliade’s later scholarship was a reaction against the ‘dilettantism’ of the Guénonians, with their ‘unhistorical’ talk of a lost Primordial Tradition.
Eliade preferred the more ‘scientific’ method of cross-cultural comparison of related myths in order to reveal their underlying structure, which required no assumptions about lost prehistoric civilisations or geographical ‘sacred centres.’ And this methodology is on display in his essays on the mythologies of Death and Light, where he travels from hunter-gatherer religions to monotheism and dualism, always celebrating “the creativity of the human mind.”
In an essay entitled ‘The World, the City, the House,’ Eliade also has an important message for architects and town-planners: “The house is not an object, a ‘machine to live in’; it is the universe that man constructs for himself by imitating the paradigmatic creation of the gods, the cosmogony. Every construction and every inauguration of a new building are in some measure equivalent to a new beginning, a new life. And every beginning repeats the primordial beginning…”
It is this drive to recover the primordial beginning that he sees as underlying the “religious pattern” disclosed by “the real or imaginary orgiastic practices of European witches”, in a lecture in which he draws on little-known Romanian folklore to bolster the case for pagan survivals. The “religious nostalgia” to which such practices bear witness was also evident to him in the rebellious youth culture of the Seventies, with its “rediscovery of ‘cosmic religion’ and the sacramental dimension of human existence”; its re-animation of alchemy, astrology, gnosis and magic; and its cultivation of oriental “methods of salvation”. All these, Eliade affirms, express the drive “to recover the lost significance and beatitude of the ‘beginnings’ and thereby the hope of discovering a new and creative mode of existing in the world.”
There is more on Eliade and religious symbolism in my Goodreads blog: Myth Dancing (Incorporating the Twenty Third Letter). A series of posts on Eliade begins here: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

[Tiziano Boccaccini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il libro riporta sei saggi di Mircea Eliade, trascrizioni di letture universitarie e pubblicati su riviste scientifiche del settore, tra Chicago e Filadelfia. Il più datato risale al 1965 ed il più recente al 1975. Gli argomenti affrontati vanno invece ben più indietro nel tempo: alcuni riguardano gli ultimi secoli, altri si fondono nell’incertezza storica di tradizioni primordiali e miti cosmogonici.

La parte che mi ha più colpito si trova nel saggio scritto nel 1974 “L’occulto e il mondo moderno”; è dedicata agli scrittori francesi del diciannovesimo secolo ed il loro interesse per l’occulto.

Sono menzionate, tra le altre, le figure cardine di Eliphas Lévi, Martinez de Pasqually, Stanislao De Guaita, per poi arrivare ai successivi poeti ispiratori di grandi movimenti di pensiero “da Baudelaire a Verlaine, da Lautreamont e Rimbaud ai nostri contemporanei, Andre Breton e i suoi discepoli”.

Un intero sottocapitolo è dedicato alla figura di René Guénon, che con la sua conoscenza elitaria tradizionalista rettifica gli “errori spirituali” commessi da vari autori e movimenti protagonisti del “revival dell’occulto” tra cui in primis la teosofia di Madame Blavatsky e L’antroposofia di Rudolf Steiner, fino a smontare le diverse logge neospiritualiste e pseudo-rosacrociane. Guénon negava la capacità dell’uomo occidentale di entrare in contatto con organizzazioni esoteriche valide.

Nello stesso capitolo viene ancora trattato il boom dell’astrologia a partire da inizio ‘900 in America, con interessanti dati statistici sulla sua ampia diffusione tramite televisione e riviste specializzate.

Un altro capitolo che ho molto apprezzato, Alcune osservazioni sulla stregoneria in Europa, discrimina tra le forme del paganesimo dell’Europa occidentale precristiana di cui rimane traccia. Dalla tradizione celtica in Inghilterra agli stregoni beneandanti del nord Italia, a fate e Călușari romeni.

Il professore filosofo Mircea Eliade, da molti considerato massima autorità tra i moderni storici delle religioni, ci fornisce la spiegazione di fenomeni del mondo attuale di cui raramente indaghiamo l’origine profonda, sia perché diamo per scontato di sapere quel che serve sapere, sia perché mancano gli strumenti intellettuali per collegare i punti.

I saggi contenuti in questo libro mi hanno aperto un varco visivo su epoche lontane, antiche usanze e discipline, ma hanno anche contribuito a farmi meglio comprendere i movimenti letterari o filosofici, le principali correnti artistiche del ‘900 e le cosiddette mode culturali.

citazione :

" Il manifestarsi del sacro crea ontologicamente il mondo. […] qualsiasi orientamento implica l’acquisizione di un punto fisso. […] Ogni nuova città rappresenta un nuovo inizio del mondo. "

Titolo originale : Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions
Edizione letta : Lindau ; 2018

[Adrian Fanaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a book on cultural fashions and the history of religions, on the mythologies of death, on the occult and the modern world, on European witchcraft and on spirit, light, and seed, that is, semen. The reason I am not giving it 5 stars is because I could not find anything specific in the book that I can relate to. Generally, the idea of occultism is important, however specifically this book did not gave anything that I can save for later. There are a few things I remember from the book, the most important thing being that there are people in the world, like Kurds or Malagasy people that used orgies as a cultural phenomenon in their religious experiences. They did not enjoy the sex as much but they thought this is a magical experience that can lift their condition.

[Oliver Duarte Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es un libro lleno de erudición. Cuando pasaba las páginas no dejaba de pensar en el estructuralismo de Lévi-Strauss, así que fui a la biografía de ambos y, evidentemente, a pesar de los paralelismos teóricos no hay posibilidad de influencia mutua puesto qua Eliade es un poco anterior al estructuralismo de Lévi-Strauss, aunque las clasificaciones y universalismos recuerdan al francés. La gran diferencia es que Lévi-Strauss es partidario de la diversidad cultural y Eliade tiene una influencia marcada de ideologías conservadoras y evolucionistas. Un gran libro lleno de datos, historias, análisis minuciosos y mucho conocimiento. 100% recomendable.

[Michael Michailidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

From fashion trends to serious scholarship

Mircea Eliade makes the claim that a historian of religion, such as himself, has a lot to offer to the understanding (or current lack there of) of the various spiritual trends that were already present during his time, half a century ago. From Indian gurus to Star signs, the rise in such phenomena might betray more than just ignorance, it might betray the inner state of mind that modern man has found himself in, and is perhaps trying to get out from.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when I think my admiration for Eliade ran its course, I find something like this.
It would be great if this was 700 pages.
But great info on what a Half bright twat Rene Guenon was, and lots of good stuff about semen and the spirit.

[Nisan Yetkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bundan sonraki okumalara da şahane bir rehber ve temel. Her şeyi burada bulmayı beklemeyin, zaten fazla fazla farklı kültüre dair bilgi var. Araştırma iştahını kabartan bir kitap.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Affascinante, anche se quando l’ho preso pensavo affrontasse l’argomento diversamente.

[蓝 幻 · Rating 4 out of 5]

伊利亚德对光、死亡、空间���重要概念的神话学解读和历史溯源，很有价值。

[Dominik · Rating 3 out of 5]

zasięganie perspektywy religioznawczej (choć są tu częste wybiegi w antropologię) - czemu nie, zawsze warto

[Loredana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as fast as I could and took lots of notes and quotes from it. The essays were relevant to some of my areas of interests and I found here many ideas to work on.

[Suat Atan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bilgi aşırıyüklemesi yaşamanız garanti çünkü Mircea Eliade. Ancak epey ilginç bilgi ve tahliller yer alıyor. Bitirince detayını hatırlamayacağınız bir çok bakış açısını ediniyorsunuz.

[Muge Pirgaip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaosda yaşamak , insanın merkezini yitirmesi ile yani kutsal ile profan arasındaki iletişimin kopmasıyla varoluşunun artık imkansız hale gelmesidir. Merkezini yitiren insan kendini ölüme bırakır. Tufan da kutsal varlıktan kopuştan ve merkezini yitirmekten başka bir şey değildir.Kitapta her türlü mimari yapı merkez simgeciliği ile açıklanmış, insanın içinde yaşadığı evinin evrenin bir imgesi olduğu vurgulanmış ancak kanımca insanın evi fiziksel evinin yanında aynı zamanda ruhudur. En kaçınılmaz ölüm de ruhun yitimidir.