A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

If we assume both reality and meaning in the world around us we are assuming it reflects something intended, and therefore an intention. An intentional process of creation is sacred.

This definition of 'sacred' is apparently the key concept of the book. Sacred: an element in consciousness.

Is this a reference to Jung? Campbell?

I like this theory. It may be totally made up, but if it’s gibberish, it is, at least, quality gibberish.

Just one of a few efforts to define us as distinct from other primates by reference to our capacities, rather than our biological parameters.

I think he points for our capacity to imagine not only a tool, but a tool to be used to make another tool, and not only our ability to seek one when needed, but also our ability to recognize that we may need one later, and should keep it handy. I guessing that the next step is to argue that this ability to think abstractly necessarily entails the propensity to imagine larger abstractions, like the divine.

“every innovation brought with it the danger of collective death

Fire is what makes humans human? Prometheus must be proud.

Conceiving of a tool that could be used to make another tool, imagining the future need for a tool, and conceiving of something as amorphous as fire as being a potential tool mark our ascendance from animal to human.

I think he means this as a matter of evolution, not as a matter of theology. Never mind, I thought that this was a comment on the development of life in general. He’s talking about the evolution of modern humans. The author sees a conscious choice by some vile or heroic forefather to alter the script by eating live prey.

That’s a pretty tough claim. Somewhere among the entire universe of carnivorous animals, one is likely to find almost every conceivable number of gender based divisions of labor & dominance.

Is this an empirical fact, or does Eliade assert that this realization is the last requirement needed to be considered truly “human.”

Eliade may have given up his early fascist leanings, but he retains their bold and declarative rhetorical style.

Why?

transformation of stone into instruments for attack and defense, the mastery over fire—not only insured the survival and development of the human species; they also produced a universe of mythico-religious values and inspired and fed the creative imagination. It is enough to examine the role of tools in the religious life and mythology of the primitives who still remain at the hunting and fishing stage. The magico-religious value of a weapon—be it made of wood or stone or metal—still survives among

Presuming those people represent an unchanged artifact of ancient time. The presumption seems no more likely than that such people represent a path of change and development that led them to a different current status than that of more 'modern' people's.

A manifestation of power, usually of divine or mystical origin.

Presuming nothing is ever completely new. Probably a sound starting point.

Referring to a Nahual, or Naghwal; a person with the ability to shift shape into an animal.

Having the form of a wild animal.

I know that this tradition existed in hunter-gatherer societies in pre-contact North America. Is it common in other hunting and gathering societies?

Apparently the answer to the previous question is “yes.”

Actually, the idea of seeking common meanings among similar rituals performed under similar conditions seems a much more valid practice than presuming that contemporary low-technology societies represent a fossilized picture of the ancient mind. The former, to which the author seems to be alluding here, is at least based on the presumption that humans remain fundamentally similar in their capabilities and outlooks.

If I remember correctly homes in Catlhuyuk also contained preserved skulls of dead (presumed) ancestors.

The idea being the conceptualizing a symbolic alternative for blood inherently implies a similar concept recognizing a symbolic alternative for life.

We’re presuming that it was done for some reason, even if we cannot definitively identify that reason.

A crooked section of antler with a hole drilled in one end, thought by some to be a spear throwing device.

I agree that the use of a symbolic substitute for blood necessarily entails some degree of belief in semiotics. Does it necessarily mean a literal belief in a continuation of existence beyond death? Presuming that the basic idea of semiotics was grasped by our ancient ancestors, it follows that they understood that symbols, objects and concepts could have a non-literal meaning. This creates at least the possibility that they could believe in a non-literal form of continued existence. They need not believe that the dead would literally survive death and actually continue in some other realm. They could be acting in memorium, as the idea of a memorial is rooted more in the symbolic continuation of existence than in a literal rebirth; and memorial ceremonies, even when divorced from specific belief in an after life, do provide value in soothing and comforting the survivors. While I think this idea is at least defensible, I am not certain it undermines the implicit connection between semiotic conceptualization and religious belief.

The ceremony’s use of the term “house” and the shaman’s pretended inability to lift the body seem To indicate that the ceremony is self-consciously symbolic. Everyone present knows that there is no literal house, and everybody knows that the shaman could lift the body if needed.

The existence of ritual implies the presence of belief. The remnants of the ritual may provide little or no insight into the nature of the belief.

Difficult to justify beyond a reliance on the Marxist idea that religion and ideology are determined by economic relations.

Which I think are inherently unreliable.

Why were the bones the portion of the corpse that were seen as the containers of the soul, and the generative element necessary for rebirth? Bones always seemed to me to be the least organic portion of a body. Maybe it is the relative permanence of the skeleton that made the bones seem important.

Essentially seeing human sexuality and reproduction ad mirroring the organization of the universe. My first instinct is to consider such a view kind of myopic. On the other hand, sexual distinctions play a pretty universal role in the creation and propagation of life on all, but the most basic cellular level. Maybe in seeing the world as a combination of male and female impulses, our ancestors were on to something. Or maybe they were just misogynists.

How exactly would human beings function without culture? It may be our only innate advantage in the contest for survival.

The theory being that the concepts needed to develop a complex civilization were originally pioneered as part of an effort to worry out the meaning of natural phenomena that early humans presumed to be invested with divine meaning.

The common artistic motifs appearing from France to Uzbekistan represent an alphabet of the sacred, or something that can be analogized to an alphabet. We no longer understand the common elements, and to us it seems miraculous that the same symbols should appear amongst distant and diverse people.

I feel like this is really the "rub." Is it really possible to take into account ALL of the differences between prehistoric and "primitive" cultures when we have so little information about the former? In fact, if we already knew enough about the former to account for its distinctions we probably would not need to puzzle out its qualities by analogy to modern low-technology cultures.

Kind of seems exactly like what we’re about to do, intentionally or otherwise.

I plausible, but not logically necessary conclusion.

The theory being that the idea preceded the radiation of the various species from a common home, as opposed to the possibility that the idea was conceived of separately by different groups of people after their migration to far corners of the earth.

I am not certain that I believe the theory that common themes in various myths denote a common origin. I do like the theory that common themes denote common origins. If it is not true, it should be.

It sometimes feels like Eliade works under the premise that earlier human cultures were making sense of "new" phenomena. It may be important to realize that for no person in history were these feelings or emotions ever "new." I am not certain that this actually undercuts any of Eliade's points, it is just something interesting to consider. The automobile was once new, and culture and society had to be changed to incorporate it into our daily lives. Anger was never new.

Was language ever new?

What has been said has been said, and may never be unsaid. It is in some ways amazing how we effortlessly change reality with just air and thought.

Just because the act carries a practical benefit does not mean it is not also sacred.

theriomorphic figures (principally of stags

Were these things collected when people died and redistributed to a new generation? We’re they made anew as symbols of a more archetypal than individualized prior incarnation?

Why is the knowledge of good and evil so tightly bound to the fall from paradise? Is it so onerous a burden to know that some choices are bad, and should be avoided even if advantageous? Is it a burden anyone would willingly set down?

Were they cultivating grain or harvesting wild cereals?

How widespread was the association of the soul and the brain? To what extent was it undermined in European cultures by the association of emotion and feeling with the heart?