MIRCEA ELIADE AND TRADITIONALISM

NATALE
SPINETO
In the extensive critical literature that has been devoted in recent years to
Eliade's intellectual development, and to his thought in general, one of the
areas where the most original results have been achieved has been that of the
discovery and evaluation of his links with scholars variously connected with
what is commonly termed Traditionalism'.
The first study specifically concerned with this topic was carried out in the
1980s by Crescenzo Fiore, who concluded, from an examination of the postwar works, that Eliade was indebted to the traditionalists for his cyclical notion of time (with respect to which we are held to be in a descending phase), his
idea of reality as 'imitation, participation, repetition', and his ontologization
of myth2. The links between Eliade and Evola or Guenon have been referred to
by other scholars, relying partly on Fiore's work, partly on Eliade's post-war
allusions to these three authors, and partly on new evidence which they themselves produced. The publication in 1988 of the volumes by Mac Linscott
Ricketts dedicated to the reconstruction of the "Romanian roots" of Eliade's
work, and which brought to light a considerable amount of hitherto unknown
evidence, marked a turning-point in this field, as it did for the whole question
of Eliade's intellectual development in general3; and the increasingly frequent
translations of his early writings have significantly enriched the material at our
disposal. Ricketts's discussion does, however, have limitations: since his account of Eliade's links with traditional thought comprises only one chapter in a
wide-ranging study that touches on every aspect of the scholar's life, he has
not considered the question in a specialized manner. Of the studies that do deal
specifically with this subject, mention must be made of Enrico Montanari's
study of the links between Eliade and Guenon and of those between Eliade and
traditional thought in general, with reference to the post-war works?; the same
period is examined in an article by Daniel Dubuisson, which concentrates on

' On Traditionalism,seeA. Faivre,'Histoirede la notionmodemede Tradition';by Traditionalism,we meanwhat Faivrecalls 'le courantp6rennialiste'(31-39).For a bibliographyon this
subject,see 47-48.
2 Fiore,Storiasacra e storiaprofana.
3 Ricketts,MirceaEliade.
4 Montanari,'Eliadee Gu6non'.

63

the philosophical and methodological levels', and in another by Gianfranco de

Turris, on Eliade and Evola6. A general assessment of relations between the
Romanian scholar and Guenon has been made by Florin Mihaescif and by
Marcel Tolcea8, and the same has been done, with a detailed analysis of the
available evidence, by Claudio Mutti9. Paola Pisi has devoted a particularly
long and detailed essay to the role of the traditionalists in the development of
Eliade's thought'O. All the evidence concerning Eliade's references to Evolabeen described and examined
original sources and secondary literature-has
by H.T. Hansen". Still unpublished is an essay by Cristiano Grottanelli, which
takes the biographical evidence as the starting-point for an analysis of Eliade's
links with Gu6non, Evola, Schmidt, and Junger'2.
These studies, the conclusions suggested by the research on Eliade's development, and the available primary sources, together provide a basis on which
we can attempt a synthesis of the influence of traditional thought on Eliade's
work.

The traditionalists

in Eliade pre-war

writings

The first reference to Guenon-whom

Eliade never met in person - probably
dates from 1927: in a critique of the theosophical movement, Eliade cites Le
Thosophisme, histoire d'une pseudo-religion (1921)13; and he returns to the
same subject in 1 932'?. Ieronim Serbu writes that he once possessed a copy of
L'homme et son devenir selon le Vdnta, signed by Eliade and dated Cal-

5 Dubuisson,'L' sotrismefascisant'.
6 De Turris,'L"'iniziato"e il Professore'.
7 Mihaescu,'MirceaEliadee ReneGu6non'.
8 Tolcea,'MirceaEliade'.
9 Mutti,Eliade, Yalsan,Geticuse gli altri.
' Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"'.
" Hansen, 'Mircea Eliade,Julius Evolaund die IntegraleTradition'.See also Mutti,Julius
Evolasul frontedell'Est, 11-28;Pisi, 'Evola,Eliadee l'alchimia,forthcoming.I wouldlike to
thankMiss Pisi for the studyshe sent me. UnfortunatelyI couldn'tuse it becauseI receivedit
whenmy paperwas alreadyin pressproof.
'2 Grottanelli,'MirceaEliade,Carl Schmitt,Rene Guenon1942'.At this
point it shouldbe
pointedout that someof the authorsmentionedin my articleare adherentto extremerightmovements.The importanthquestionof the relationbetweenTraditionalismand extremeright would
requirea separatediscussionand willnot be addressedhere.Withrespectto the presentarticle,it
shouldbe obviousthat if I have to refer to writingsby extremeright scholars,this in no way
impliesadherenceto or sympathywith their politics.
'3 Eliade,'ItinerariuspiritualVIII (Teosofie?)',48 (see Tolcea,'MirceaEliade', 13;
Scagno,
'MirceaEliade:un Ulisseromeno', 19).
11'Spiritualitate misterfeminin',203. Cf. Ricketts,MirceaEliade,848.

64
cutta, 18 June 192915. Eliade also read L'Esoterisme de Dante (1925) and Le
roi du monde (1927), which he lent to Marcel Avramescu in the early 1930s'6.
In 1937 he expresses his regret that Orient et Occident and La crise du monde
he makes the same comment
moderne have not been more widely read 17 and
,
in another article in which he groups Guenon together with Evola and
Coomaraswamy". Eliade seems to hold Guenon in high esteem: in August
1942, he writes that Carl Schmitt 'says the most interesting man alive today is
Rene Guenon [and he is happy that I agree] '19; next year, speaking about "Dr.
Mario", he says that 'he believes Rene Guenon is the most interesting person
of our time (I do not always believe this, but often I dol'2. But since he does
even in his bibliographies2'not cite Guenon in his academic writings-not
Ricketts concludes that he cannot have had much respect for him as a scholar.
The lack of references may, however, be explained by the fact that Eliade only
intended to cite works written according to a historico-philological method22.
According to Mihaescu, the history of relations between the two scholars may
be divided into three phases: in the first, the period of his youth, Eliade reads
Guenon, admires his work, and refers to it; in the second, which extends down
to the 1970s, Eliade, now integrated into western intellectual circles, makes no
mention of the writings of the French traditionalist. In the last phase, when
Eliade's international reputation is assured, he starts to mention Guenon again
and acknowledges his importance, though with some reservationsZ3.
As far as Evola is concerned, Eliade was familiar with his work as early as
1927, when he commented on an article of his on occultism, praising the competence, the command of the evidence, and the understanding of the problem
15Mihaescu,'MirceaEliadee RenGunon',15.
'6 Mutti,Eliade, Vlsan,Geticuse gli altri, 36.
" `Ananda Coomaraswamy',183-189.Cf. Ricketts,MirceaEliade,848.
'8 `Note fragmente',8. Cf. Ricketts,MirceaEliade,848.Otherreferencesmaybe foundin
Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',46, whereall Eliade's most importantallusionsto Gu6non'swritings
are recorded.
This phrase is crossedout in the originalmanuscript;indeed, it does not appear in the
Rumanianpublicationof the Journal(Eliade,Jurnal, 19).I thankMac LinscottRickettsfor this
information,as wellas for the unpublishedpassagesof the Journalthat I quote(seenotes20, and
48).
ZoJournal,17 February1943.Unpublished.
2' Thereis but one exceptionto this, as far as I am aware:Eliade,Traited'histoiredes relide la croix).
gions,384 (he quotesGu6non'sLe syrrabolisnae
22Ricketts,MirceaEliade, 848. However,as Pisi pointsout, the lack of citationsdoes not
implya negativejudgement,especiallyas 'in his prewarwritingsEliade is extremelysparing
with citationsand criticalreferences'('I "tradizionalisti"',85-86,n. 21). On Eliade'sreferences
to Guenonin the post-waryears,seeMontanari,'Eliadee Guenon', 132-134;Mihaescu,'Mircea
Eliadee ReneGu6non',16-17;on Gu6non'sreferencesto Eliade,see Tolcea,'MirceaEliade'.
z3Mihaescu,'MirceaEliadee ReneGu6non',17-18.

65

that the author shows, and accepting the idea that occultism is based on concrete experience; he criticizes him, however, for not taking account of Christianity?4. Grottanelli comments that 'for Eliade, in this respect closer to Julius
Evola [than to Gu6non], the occult mentality with its secret traditions [... ] was
the receptacle of a sacred power in its function of redeeming the "new man"
and the Romanian nation, even though this power and redemption was meant,
unlike in Evola, to be based on a "Christian" approach'25. In 1935 Eliade wrote
a review ofRivolta contro il mondo moderncJ6. He considers Evola 'one of the
most interesting minds of the war generation' and juxtaposes him with
Gobineau, Chamberlain, Spengler, and Rosenberg, while apparently considering him more "serious" than all of them; he says that he has published an essay
on him and that he has written a study of his philosophy of magic, though he
has not published it. As Paola Pisi points out, the review does not correspond
exactly to the content of the book: Eliade writes that Evola is 'anti-Christian
and antipolitical [...] against both communists and fascists '27, 'an opinion
we
about Evola which is hard to share'2g; moreover, he misunderstands-as
will see later-the Evolian concept of "Tradition". The two men met in 1937
at the home of lonescu?9. Writing in 1937, Eliade describes both Gu6non and
Evola as "dilettantes" (the quotation marks are his ownf, probably meaning
that they have no specialized competence (unlike Coomaraswamy, Andrae,
Mus, and Jeremias, who are cited in the same context).
Starting from 1926, Eliade became familiar with Ananda K. Coomaraswamy's work. Coomaraswamy was a Gudnonian scholar who, however, differed
from Guenon in not leaving the academic world; at that time, he had not yet

z4 'Ocultismulin culturacontemporana'.Cf. Scagno,'MirceaEliade:un Ulisseromeno', 19.

For a completesurveyof relationsbetweenEliadeand Evola-including the secondaryliterature-see Hansen,'MirceaEliade'.
zs Grottanelli,'Mircea Eliade, Carl Schmitt, Rene Guenon 1942'. Hansen, discussing
Eliade's-not explicit but unmistakable-descriptionof Evola in the novel Noudsprezece
trandafiri,speaksof a Faszinationskraftexertedby Evola on young people(Hansen,'Mircea
Eliade', 28).
z? 'Revoltacontralumii modeme',6.
27'Revolta', 6.
z? Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',45.
z9For Eliade'sjudgementson Evola'swork,see Pisi 'I "tradizionalisti"',82, n. 12;88-90,n.
27. Eliade's referencesto Evola,mainly in his post-warwritings,are reproducedin full and
analysed,with an accountof relationsbetweenthe two scholars,in De Turris,'L' "Iniziato"e il
Professore',219-249;on relationsbetweenEliadeand Evolasee alsoMutti, JuliusEvola,14-28.
Wasserstrommentions,in a note to Religionafter Religion(261, n. 65), a studythat he has
writtenon Eliadeand Evola,but he givesno detailsand I havenot foundanyrecordof it having
been published.
30Eliade,'Folclorulca instrumentde cunoa?tere',28-29.

66
come under the influence of the French traditionalist3'. Later, in the 1930s,
Eliade began corresponding with him32. In 1937 he expresses admiration for
the way in which Coomaraswamy, like Guenon and Evola, shows that oriental
religion and philosophy are in harmony with western "traditionalism". For
Coomaraswamy emphasized the primordial, metaphysical Tradition33, as is
shown by the example of the sacred tree.
to the texts
These biographical facts and these-albeit
scanty-references
attention
to
indicate
that
Eliade
Guenon, Evola, and
paid particular
certainly
of analogies: for
This
attention
is
a
series
Coomaraswamy.
accompanied by
example, as Dubuisson notes, the symbolisms of the centre, the cosmic tree,
the stairway, the labyrinth, the bridge, and those of light, the nodes, the waters,
and initiation, which are all central to Eliade's writings, are the subject of
Gudnon's book Symboles fondamentaux de la science sacre, a collection of
Howarticles that had appeared in various journals between 1925 and
derives
from
these
artiever, the hypothesis that Eliade's research on symbols
cles needs to be verified case by case, bearing the chronology in mind, of
course. Beyond the personal contacts, encomiums, and analogies, the extent to
which the reading of the traditionalists influenced Eliade's writings can only
be assessed on the basis of a thorough examination of the content of the writings themselves.
Paola Pisi has carried out such an analysis, looking for actual correspondences between certain writings by Eliade and the works of the three authors in
question. The results of her research make it possible to clarify some key elements in the Romanian scholar's development. In the first place, they concern
his researches into alchemy. Alchemy was a subject that had already been discussed by Nae Ionescu, who however had merely offered a few hints; but in
had been published much earlier than
Evola's writings on the subject-which
Eliade's, and were known to him-we fmd that they have some central themes
in common. The cosmological and at the same time spiritual nature of alchemical techniques, and the idea of nature as an organic whole whose different levels are linked by correspondences, are features that are present both in
Eliade's interpretation and in that of Evola, who in turn derives them from
Guenon35, though it should be pointed out that these are standard topics in
31
Ricketts, MirceaEliade, 851.
32Nineteenletters from Coomaraswamyto Eliade, written betweenNovember1936 and
March 1940,were publishedby Handoca,MirceaEliade ji coresponden Iii
sai, 215-237.
j; 'AnandaCoomaraswamy'.Cf. Ricketts,MirceaEliade, 851.
14Dubuisson, 'La conceptioneliadiennedu symbolisme',32. See also Tolcea, 'Mircea
Eliade'.
35Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 49-50.
,

67

occultist studies. The multiplicity of meanings of the symbol is characteristic

of Guenon's thought as We1116.
Eliade might also have found in Guenon the two
themes of the "centre of the world" and the celestial models of human constructions, which he discusses in particular in Cosmologie oi alchimie
babilonianii (published in 1937). For the symbolism of the centre, however,
we should not overlook the influence of Uno Holmberg and Paul Mus; according to Ricketts, the symbolism of the "axis mundi" comes from Coomaraswamy and Mus, but, as Paola Pisi points out, Ricketts acknowledges that both
. far as the Myth of reintegration is
scholars had borrowed it from Gu6non 17 As
how
Pisi
notes
the
notions
of
concerned,
"reintegration" and "androgyny" are
and
esotericism:
so there are bound to be passages
of
modem
occultism
typical
in the book which recall writings of the traditionalists; but Eliade quotes, 'almost word for word, a series of concepts and arguments from the works of
Coomaraswamy [...]: the two most important chapters of the Myth of Reintegration, the ones that are richest in theoretical reflections, are in fact a summary, with long sections copied word for word, of a 1935 article by Coomaraswamy, "Angel and Titan", which the Romanian scholar mentions only once,
and on a very minor question '38. The theme of sacrifice-and ritual-as reintegration is also characteristic of Coomaraswamy39. The expression "rupture de
niveau", on the other hand, is taken from Paul Mus4. In the Comentarii la
legenda Me?terului Manole Pisi finds a concept of folklore (also present in
Fragmentarium) similar to that of Evola and Coomaraswamy, who in turn
drew it from Guenon4'. In the same work we come across the notion of archetype, linked with the ideas of participation and ritual repetition; Pisi connects
the origin of the concept of archetype with Eliade's studies on the celestial
models of constructions and on human sacrifice as a repetition of the cosmogonic sacrifice, and notes that these motifs are present in Coomaraswamy,
linked with the word "archetype": 'this is not just a question of terminology:
Coomaraswamy had used the concept of "archetype" in the sense of "exemplary model" long before Eliade'42. Moreover, Eliade could also have found
the term "archetype" in Andrae and Gunon43. However, the sacrifices of con36 pisi,'I "tradizionalisti"' 51.
,
'7 Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 97,
, 60.
'8 Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 54.
,
,
39 Pisi,'I "tradizionalisti"' 58.
4 Pisi,'I "tradizionalisti"' ,103,n. 81.
41Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 61.
,
42Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 68.
,
43Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',116, n. 135. For a reconstructionof the meaningsof the term
"archetype"in Eliade's writingsand an analysisof the perspectivesthat influencedhis works
afterthe traditionalists,see Spineto,'MirceaEliadee gli archetipi'.

'

68
struction and the idea of "creative death" are not present in Coomaraswamt4,
and the concept of cosmogony being repeated in situations of crisis is lacking
in Coomaraswamy45. Claudio Mutti believes that Eliade accepted 'the
Gu6nonian theory of the need to resort to the wisdom of the West in order to
bring Europe back to the path of tradition'46, a theory which, if we temporarily
bracket out the word "tradition", is one of the constant themes of Eliade's
work. But this conviction probably arose, even before his reading of Guenon,
from his study of theosophical writings, which dates from his penultimate year
in high school, when he began to develop a passionate interest in the history of
religions and in the Orient".
The works considered are only a small part of Eliade's voluminous production, but it is probable that an extension of the analysis would confirm these
conclusions, especially as his thesis and his articles on Yoga deal with subjects
to which some exponents of traditional thought had devoted particular attention. It must therefore be concluded that some central and characteristic concepts of Eliade's thought derive some of their features-in some cases fundafrom his reading and his use of the works of the
mental ones-directly
traditionalists48. This is true in particular of the concepts of anthopo-cosmic
correspondence, of the symbol, of the sacred centre, of the "cyclical" quality
of traditional time, of human construction as a repetition of cosmogony, of
sacrifice as reintegration, of androgyny, and of the archetype. Since these are
all terms and notions that form an integral part of the theoretical framework of
Eliade's post-war work, it may be said that his encounter with the traditionalists brought about a transformation. The study of Eliade's "oeuvre" leads Mac
Linscott Ricketts to date this transformation approximately to the years 1936193749.
The transformation may, however, be interpreted in two ways: as an adherence to traditional thought or as a change of perspective which is stimulated by
44Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' ,113,n. 130.
45Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 117,
, n. 136.
Mutti,Eliade, Tlalsan,Geticuse gli altri, 20.
47Eliade,Autobiography.VolumeI: 1907-1937,84-85. It may be conjecturedthat the first
studiesofthe religionsof Indiathat Eliadereadwerebookspublishedby the theosophicalmovement :in a page froma 1923diary,the youngEliadeexpressesthe wish to read the originalsof
the Sanskritworkspublishedin translationby the theosophists(Ricketts,MirceaEliade,74).
4$Thus Eliade can say, in 1940,that he has some "traditionalist"views:in his Journalhe
writesaboutTuliu,a characterof thenovelViaj9Nouawhichhas occultinterests:'Actually,his
theoriesare not entirelyforeignto me. Tuliu will say things which [...]I have never had the
courageto expressin public.I haveonly,at times,confessedto a fewfriendsmy "traditionalist"
views(to use RendGu6non'sterm)' (FromEliade'sJournal,27 July 1940;publishedin Eliade,
VialaNoua, 212).
49Ricketts,MirceaEliade, 800 ff.

69

the reading of the traditionalists, but which gives rise to a new result. The
alternative may be formulated in the words that Eliade uses in his review of
Evola: 'works of this kind can be read in many ways: as people who are ready
to accept everything at our own risk or reject everything in the same manner;
but also as people who are ready to welcome suggestions wherever they come
from and who are happy to verify them in every circumstance "0. Which of the
two groups does Eliade belong to?
A thorough analysis reveals that traditionalist concepts and terms are integrated by Eliade within a different conceptual framework. In the first place,
the central notion of Traditionalism, the very idea of a primordial Tradition, is
lacking in Eliade. In a book on Symbole, mythe, culture, which he was planning at this time, he intended to demonstrate the universality of the metaphysical traditions and the unity of symbolism, but he never speaks of "primordial
Tradition". He states that by "traditional culture", 'we mean [... ] any culture
[... ] dominated in its totality by norms whose religious or cosmological (metaphysical) validity is not called into question by any member of the community'51; elsewhere, he writes that 'in traditional cultures (India, China, etc.)
there is a certain " fidelity" to doctrines, to norms. They show no interest in
"novelty", "change", "adventure""2. In short, the adjective "traditional" here
has a descriptive significance, not a normative one53: it serves to indicate a
certain type of culture, in the definition of which there is nothing that implies
an adherence to Traditionalism. It is significant, moreover, that in the review
of Evola quoted above he defines the notion of "traditional values" as follows:
'every value that does not make life an end in itself, but considers that human
existence is only a means of arriving at a spiritual, transcendent reality'54.
Paola Pisi points out that Eliade misunderstands Evola and that here traditional values become 'a generic "opening to the transcendent""'. Eliade, then,
does not adhere to traditional thought, but uses a concept of "tradition" that he
has reinterpreted and stripped of those very features that were most distinctive
in the traditionalists. Indeed, whereas Guenon and Evola speak of alchemy as
a "cosmological and initiatic" science, Eliade uses the adjectives "cosmological and soteriological", and does not appeal to an esoteric knowledge56.
Again, it should be noted that Eliade uses the traditionalist concept of folklore
as "degradation", but does so imprecisely, as Guenon himself pointed out in a
5 Eliade,'Revolta', 6.
5' 'Barabadur,tempulsimbolic',n. 1.
sz Eliade,Fragmentarium,130.
The formulationis that of Pisi,'I "tradizionalisti"',99, n. 69.
s4 Eliade,'Revolta', 6.
ss Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 45.
,
Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 53.
,

70
review, because 'folklore constitutes a "degradation" with respect to "something" different, which nevertheless remains indeterminate'57. Finally it must
be observed that, although the basis of the similarities between the religious
facts documented by folklore lies in a common "tradition", elsewhere Eliade
speaks of a "collective unconscious" and also accepts the diffusionist theses:
he does not, therefore, adhere to a strong hypothesis, but seems to leave a
range of possibilities open58.Nor does it seem possible to argue, as Dubuisson
does, that the mere fact that he uses the term "traditional" with reference to the
terms "esotericism" and "occultism" makes it possible, despite everything, to
link Eliade with Gu6non".
Reinterpreted in this manner, tradition loses its metaphysical connotation:
the "Platonic" nature that Eliade acknowledges as characteristic of archaic
societies does not in itself imply a Platonic view of reality6. This difference is
also reflected in the notion of "reintegration", which is stripped of the ontological nature that Coomaraswamy gave it, and in the notion of "archetype",
which in the traditionalists has an exclusively metaphysical value, whereas in
Eliade it preserves a variety of meanings, which I have attempted to analyse
elsewhere 61 .As Ricketts notes, Eliade tends to replace the traditionalists'
"metaphysical" with the term
Devoid of metaphysical value, tradition is not unchanging, either, but is
enriched and modified by man's discoveries. Already in 1937, inCosmologie
oi alchimie babiloniana, Eliade emphasizes that technical progress (the discovery of metallurgy or agriculture) has the effect of changing the religious
57Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"' 63.
,
58Ricketts,MirceaEliade,856.
'y Dubuisson,'La
conceptioneliadiennedu symbolisme',30. Referringto a passagein the
Cosmologie,GrottanellilinksEliade'sattitudeto Evolaand Gu6nonwith Romaniannationalism
in the 1930s:'what dictatesthe Romanian'schoicesis the peculiarnationalisticperspectiveof
this son of a peoplewhich is "poor in history"and rich in archaicsymbols[...]. Neitherthe
universalismof Traditionthat Guenonhad reaffirmed,nor the "Arian" doctrineof resurgent
ancientimperialismpropoundedby Evola,are usableby the Romanianpatriotin 1935and 1937.
For this heir of the Romantictradition,[...]the reaffirmationof the "pre-Arian"rootsof yogic
India, and of the age-oldcosmologicalwisdomof the pre-RomanDaci, is a distinctivesign,
which inevitablyseparateshim from his traditionalistmasters' ('Mircea Eliade,Carl Schmitt,
Ren6Guenon1942').
11This is alsotrue of the
post-warwritings,in whichEliadecontinuesto makeabundantuse
of the expression"traditionalcivilizations".For example,in a note to Autobiography11:19371960, in mentioninga reviewby Eugeniod'Ors of Le Mythede l'ternel retour, he writes:
'D'Ors appreciatedespeciallythe fact that I had broughtout the Platonicstructureof traditional
("popular")archaicontologies'(134,n. 2).
61See Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',52, 59, 70. On the meaningsof the term "archetype",see
Spineto,'MirceaEliadee gli archetipi'.
?2Ricketts,MirceaEliade,857.

71

heritage of the archaic cultures63; so he acknowledges that this heritage is dependent on historical processes.
Nor does Eliade seem to accept the thesis propounded by Evola and
Guenon, according to which history has a cyclical development and we are at
present in a descending phase. In Cosmologia, history is presented as a series
of "fundamental intuitions" or "mental syntheses" which manifest themselves,
degenerate, or die, without any progression from one to the othef'4. Consequent on this is also a different way of judging modernity. At the end of the
Comentarii, Eliade writes: 'Is the archaic world, which we have continually
evoked in the pages of this book, so very remote from us? And does the act of
"degradation" of the original metaphysical meaning, which we have also identified many times, entitle us to depreciate fundamentally all that is "modem",
imposing on ourselves at all costs a pessimistic vision of history?'65. These are
of course rhetorical questions, which Pisi suggests 'constitute a dialogue at a
distance with those "masters of the Tradition" (Gu6non, Evola, Coomaraswamy) whom Eliade had mentioned in the preface as emblematic examples of an
antipositivistic reaction'66. On the pages that follow, Eliade stresses that the
in a nostalgic sensearchetypes continue to act on modern man-though
as
the
total
guaranteeing continuity,
against
opposition that the traditionalists
found between archaic and modem6?. The difference between Eliade's concept
of time and that of the traditionalists invalidates one of Crescenzo Fiore's argumentS61 ; Guenon himself, while expressing his approval of Le mythe de
l'ternel retour, criticizes Eliade's philosophy ofhistory69.
63 Eliade,Cosmologie,12.
? Eliade, Cosmologie,10 ff.; see Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',53. In an article publishedin
Fragmentarium,Eliadewritesthat 'our presentworldfinds itselfat the end of a cycle' (Eliade,
Fragmentarium,94), an affirmationwhich PhilippeBaillettakes as alludingto traditionalist
theoriesof time (Baillet,Prefazione,22). For Pisi, by contrast,the contextsuggeststhat Eliade
wasthinkingratherof OswaldSpengler,in whomNae Ionescuwas interestedat the time (Pisi,'I
"tradizionalisti"',86).
bs Eliade,Comentarii,136.
Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',70-71.
67Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',71. On this basis,Eliadethoughthe couldapplyto contemporary
culturalproductsa reverse"demystification",withthe aim of revealingthe sacredelementsthat
underlaythem.On this point,see Montanari,'Eliade e Gu6non',135-138.
68Fiore,Storiasacra, 17.It is thereforeimpossibleto read Eliadeusingtraditionalistideasas
a parameter:anyonewho sets out to do so, as Piero Di Vonadoes,is boundto find a seriesof
contradictionsand inconsistenciesin Eliade'sthought.If 'we are unableto bringterminological
clarityto Eliade'sperspectives,whichstand in oppositionto one anotherand lackunity' ('Storia
e tradizionein Eliade', 13),it is becauseEliade'sremotenessfromthe traditionalistconceptsis
not a questionof terms but of framesof reference.If, on the other hand, we moveoutsidethe
traditionalistperspective,it becomespossibleto see a greaterconsistencyin Eliade'sposition.It
is true, however,that the undeniableconceptualoscillationswhich Di Vonanotes in Eliade's
workscertainlydo not help to clarifythe question.
Reviewingthe book,whichwaspublishedin 1949,he considers"unclear"the notionof the

72

Eliade, then, adopts some traditionalist themes in order to insert them in a

different context. But what sort of context is it? In an article published in 1937
he contrasts two ways of analysing ethnographical and folkloristic documents:
the first is that of Lucian Blaga, who searches for the "style" of a culture; the
second aims to 'determine the unity of the traditions and symbols that are the
foundation of the early oriental, Amerindian and occidental civilizations, as
well as of the "ethnographic" cultures'70. Among the representatives of the
latter school, Eliade cites Guenon, Evola, Coomaraswamy, Walter Andrae,
Paul Mus, and Alfred Jeremias; later he also mentions Carl Hentze. The first
three figures have already been discussed in detail above; as far as the others
are concerned, it should be noted that Mus refers back to Coomaraswamy;
Hentze, Andrae and Jeremias have no direct connection with them. Jeremias
spoke of a spiritual language common to the various cultures; Andrae was an
therefore remote from Gudnon's perspective-and
had
anthroposophist-and
insisted that symbols have a metaphysical meaning, which becomes more obscure with the passing of time, as the symbols become more elaborate71. Both
authors are used by Coomararaswamy. It is not correct to describe all these
perspectives as "traditional"; what unites them is the importance they attach to
the symbol. In the same year, 1937, Eliade speaks of the rediscovery of the
symbol, seeing in this rediscovery the presence of a wider cultural phenomenon than traditional thought". The notion of the symbol, in fact, must be
taken as a starting-point for an explanation of Eliade's interest in the traditionalists. The symbol was a central concept in the thought of Ionescu, who, however, may be said to have framed it in a theistic perspective; even during his
time in India Eliade realizes the value of the symbol, because he has experi"regenerationof time" advancedby Eliadeand criticizesthe idea that the cyclicalconceptions
of timeare opposedto history(Formestraditionnelles,21 ff.):Gu6non,to whomMichaiVlsan
had spokenabout Eliade,intendshere to reconcilethe youngRomanianscholarwith his own
ideas, correctingthose affirmationswhich are not compatiblewith his own thought (on this
question,see Montanari,'Eliade e Gudnon',146-147).WhenEvolain 1951reproachedEliade
with citingrepresentativesof the academicworldsuch as Pettazzonibut not Gu6non,nor 'other
authorswhoseideasare muchnearerto thosewhichallowyouto take yourbearingsconfidently
in the subjectyou discuss',Eliadereplied,in a letterthat has not beenpreserved,witha reference
to what Evolacallsthe tacticof the"Trojanhorse".Oncehe had enteredinto academicculture,
the scholarwouldbe ableto declarehis traditionalistconvictionsopenly.Actually,Eliadedidnot
subscribeto the fundamentaltheoriesof the traditionalists,and anywaywe know that Eliade
succeededin reachingthe highestlevelsof the academicworldin Americaand receivedmany
academicawards,but still continuedto distancehimselfmore and more from traditionalism.
Why then did Eliade express himself in those terms? On this problem, see G. de Turris,
'L"'Iniziato"e il Professore',243; Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',73-78.A furtherquestionis why
Eliadeno longercites the traditionalistsafter the war: see Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',78-80.
7 Eliade,'Folclorul',28.
" Ricketts,MirceaEliade, 853.
72Eliade,Fragrrtentarium,36-37.Cf. Ricketts,MirceaEliade, 854.

73

ence of it. The symbol has the same role in India as in orthodox Romania: it is
a reality of a universal kind. In the passage quoted above, Eliade searches for
"the unity of traditions" in the plural, that is, the element common to the various religious traditions, which, qua traditions, as we saw earlier, possess an
openness towards the transcendental. And he finds this unity in the intercultural notion of the symbol: a notion that is central to the thought of the
traditionalists, who developed it through their research on the centre, the sacred tree, androgyny, and the union of opposites. The anthropologists, too, had
tried to justify the similarities between the various religious phenomena, but
had done so by means of evolutionist principles. In the preface to the
Comentarii la Legenda Me?terului Manole (1943), Eliade sets against the
positivist methods of Tylor, Mannhardt and Frazer those of Olivier Leroy,
Guenon, Evola, and Coomaraswamy'3. Therefore, although he does not consider them above criticism-he writes that they sometimes have gone so far as
to deny 'the evidence of the history and completely ignored the factual data
attributes to them the fundamental role of having
gathered by researchers'-he
an
alternative
model
to the positivist one74.
supplied
in
for
the
constants
of humanity, then, that Eliade appropriIt is his search
ates traditional thought". But at this point, if he is himself to adhere to the
traditionalist positions, he would have to defme the symbol in a metaphysical
sense. This, however, is a step that he does not take, because the basis of the
existential experiunity of feeling of humankind lies, for him, elsewhere-in
ence. The universality of the concept of the coincidentia oppositorum derives,
according to Eliade, from the fact that it 'answers, undoubtedly, to a fundamental human need, from the moment he becomes aware of his position in the
Cosmos''6. This awareness does not consist in a feeling of paradisiacal harmony ; on the contrary, it derives from a fall: 'man feels himself "separated"
from something, and this separation is the source of unending pain, fear and
despair. He feels weak and alone; and this "something", whatever name one
bestows on it, is powerful and total (or more precisely, "totalized"), since it
comprises all that man is not, all that is other with respect to him"'. Every
" Eliade,Comentarii,7.
'4 In his post-warworks,however,Eliadeattributesthis roleto the phenomenologists
(Pisi, 'I
"traditionalisti"',43).
'S Dubuissonnotesthat Eliade'sand Gu6non'sconceptsof the symbolare similar:in boththe
symbolis seenas detachedfromits historicalcontext;someof its isolateddetailsareemphasized
and the symbol is given a timeless and immutablemeaning('La conceptioneliadiennedu
symbolisme',31 ).Withoutgoinginto the questionin detailit maybe said that at any rate these
elementsare peculiarto Traditionalism.
7" Eliade,Mitulreintegrdrii,62.
77Eliade,Mitulreintegrdrii,62.

74

religious act aims to overcome this state of separation and to reintegrate the
totality: the coincidentia oppositorum is not merely the objective of religion
but also the means of attaining it, because every religious experience realizes
the paradox of making a common object sacred". In these words we find an
anticipation of the concept of hierophany, which will not be expounded and
clarified until the Traiti. As Pisi stresses, such a concept turns Coomaraswamy's and Gudnon's ideas on their head, because it puts 'at the origin of the
ecumenicity of the coincidentia oppositorum a natural foundation ('the universal human need') in place of the super-human (thephilosophia perennis)'79.
Evola, she recalls, had spoken in 1925, before his adherence to Traditionalism,
of "an age of spontaneity"-in
which there is unity between man and cosmos
and there is therefore no religion-succeeded
by a second stage, in which,
with separation, self-awareness appears, and with it nostalgia for the original
state of union 8. Eliade may have taken account of these positions, but in him
there is no distinction between the two stages: man, qua man, is already tom,
divided. What cultural referents, then, is he linked with? Because of the rigorously intellectual content of traditional metaphysics, Coomaraswamy does not
concern himself with "religious feeling", while Guenon explicitly opposes the
theorists of "sentimentalism"81 ; moreover, Coomaraswamy and Gudnon do not
admit the sacred-profane distinction except as a characteristic of modemiw 2.
The use of the terms "other" and "sacred", on the other hand, lead one to link
Eliade's ideas with those of Rudolf Otto. Pisi believes that his closeness to
Otto is limited to the primacy of feeling, not its modes, because for the German
scholar 'the perception of the numinous causes as a reflex the "creatural" feeling of dependence, not the desire for reintegration in the unindifferentiated1;3.
In fact, the creatural feeling does have a place in Eliade's conception, but it is
reinterpreted as that sense of separation and tornness, which is the origin of the
human longing to regain its fullness. Eliade knew Otto through Ionescu's
courses; and he had mentioned his ideas in Fragmentariums4. A second influence is Kierkegaard, one of Eliade's favourite authors in his youth; he had
known him through some writings published in the series "Cultura dell'anima"
edited by Giovanni Papini for the publisher Carabba85. Finally, the concept of
7HEliade,Mitul
reintegrarii,63.
79Pisi, 'I "traditionalisti"',60.
80Pisi, 'I "traditionalisti"',104,n. 89.
81 nisi,'I "traditionalisti"',104,n. 90.
82 Pisi,'I "traditionalisti"',106,n. 93.
83Pisi, 'I "traditionalisti"',105-106,n. 92.
84Eliade,Fragmentarium,13-14.
85Eliade'sfirst studyof the Danish
philosopher,whomhe knewthroughItaliantranslations
(Scagno,Libertae terroredella storia, 124,n. 57; Eliade,Ordealby Labyrinth,17),dates from
1928:`SorenKierkegaard',Cuvdntul,see also 'Soren Kierkegaard',hremea.

75

"power", which recalls the theories of "mana", may be connected with his
reading of Van der Leeuw, which dates from 193 916.
Eliade's post-war writings
After the war Eliade's references to Guenon and Evola become very rare and
we might well apply to both of them what Enrico Montanari writes of Guenon,
that he becomes 'rather an object of interpretation than an interpreter'. 'The
importance he attributes to myth, his lack of enthusiasm for monotheism and a
metaphysics poor in cosmology, his vitalistic concept of the "sacred", and the
hermeneutic usefulness that he accords to Jungian psychoanalysis, all these
things find no parallel in the thought of the French esotericiSt,17 .But the greatest differences between the perspectives of the two scholars lie elsewhere: we
may again resort to Montanari for a formulation of them. First, according to
the traditional-and
not only the Gunonian-orientation,
present-day civilization is in the last phase of a temporal cycle ("Kali-yuga"): but Eliade, whose
position even in his youth did not seem compatible with these ideas, writes in
1957 that the doctrine of Kali-yuga derives from a learned reworking by the
Indian priestly caste. He uses the doctrine of cosmic cycles as an example to
show what happens 'when the sense of the religiousness of the cosmos become
lost'88; in other words, he cites a doctrine which Guenon considered genuinely
traditional and objectively valid as an example of what happens when one
departs from the tradition'9. Secondly, Eliade praises the value of the "primitive" cultures and considers the shaman as an archetype of the homo
religiosus: therefore on this question, too, he adopts a position exactly opposite to that of Guenon, for whom shamanism is the degeneration of the primordial9. Thirdly, the different treatment of the theme of initiation should be

86M. Eliade,R. Pettazzoni,L'histoiredes religionsa-t-elleun sens?, 177,n. 5.

87Montanari,'Eliadee Gu6non',143.
8$Eliade, Das Heilige und das Profane, Engl. Tr., 107 ('lorsque le sens de la religiosit
cosmiques'obscurcit',Le sacri et le profane,95).
R9Montanari,'Eliadee Gudnon',143.Wasserstrom
(Religionafter Religion,46) sees an adherenceby Eliadeto the Gutsnonianconceptof time in the affirmation:'the "post-historicera" is
unfoldingunderthe sign of pessimism'(Eliade,'Some notes', 209).But the phrasecomesafter
a passagewhereEliade,aftersayingthat he hesitatesto regardCoomaraswamy
(Gu6nonian)as a
pessimist,assertsthat pessimismseemsto him to have becomegeneralizedin the last few decades, so much so that so that 'one can almostsay that, with the exceptionof Marxismand
Teilhard'stheology,the "post-historicera" is unfoldingunderthe sign of pessimism'.This certainlydoesnot seemto indicatean adherenceto Guenonon Eliade'spart.
90Montanari,'Eliade e Guenon', 144.The Frenchscholardoes not, however,condemnshamanismas such,but only its most recentmanifestations:Pisi, 'I "tradizionalisti"',116,n. 134.

76
noted: in Eliade, unlike in Gu6non, there is no incompatibility between initiation and mysticism (indeed, the Romanian scholar's main work on initiation is
entitled Naissances mystiques); there is no technical distinction between great
and small mysteries; there is no trace of the theory that the reference to Tradition serves to distinguish true initiations from pseudo-initiations; Eliade does
not acknowledge the need to undergo a regular initiatic rite to start on a process of spiritual reintegration; indeed, he thinks that the possibility of oral-as
is barred to modem man; and he takes the
opposed to written-transmission
opposite view from Guenon in attaching importance to "profane instruction"
and considering the events of human life as "initiatory ordeal or trials'"i .
No comparably thorough analysis has been made of the influence of
Evolian thought on Eliade's post-war writings. De Turris has studied the relations between Eliade and Evola chiefly on a biographical level; on the intellectual level he assumes that Eliade took from Evola and Guenon 'the basis from
which he subsequently developed his later theoretical construction which he
"propped up" with academic and scientific references'92: a theory which, in the
light of what has been said above, is no longer tenable. In his post-war writings
Eliade refers to Evola several times without ever speaking of an affinity of
views with him. On the contrary, he insists on the divergences that were noted
above: 'like Rene Guenon, Evola presumed a "primordial tradition" in the
existence of which I could not believe; I was suspicious of its artificial,
ahistorical character'93. Modem western culture, according to Evola, is in a
state of decadence or "putrefaction": a diagnosis which in Eliade's view is
accurate, but only for someone who believes in the existence of Tradition. 'To
the extent that I believe in the creativity of the human spirit, I cannot despair;
culture, even in a crepuscular era, is the only means of conveying certain values and of transmitting a certain spiritual message'94. In particular, Eliade is
confident about the consequences of the 'reentry of Asia into history and the
discovery of the spirituality of archaic societies', and believes that the sacred
disguised in the profane may be reached through hermeneutics95.
9' Montanari,'Eliadee Gu6non',144-145.Forthe notionof humanexperiencesas of "initiatory ordealsor trials", see, for example,Ordealby Labyrinth,27.
92De Turris,'L"iniziato"e il Professore',245.
II 1937-1960,Engl.transl. 152.
93 Eliade, Mmoire
94Eliade,MimoireII 1937-1960,Engl.transl., 152.This, accordingto Hansen,is the main
differencebetweenEliade,who is optimisticwith respectto contemporaryman, and Evolian
traditionalism('Mircea Eliade,JuliusEvola', 40).
?5In the conclusionof his essayon relationsbetweenEliadeand Evola,Hansenasks himself
threequestions.First,are thereany parallelsbetweenEliadeand the traditionalists?He answers
andthus philosophicallylessrigid'.
yes,but 'in a waywhichis merelyexternal,"morphological"
Secondly,does Eliade use-without saying so-traditional ideas? Undoubtedly,but 'always

77

Eliade felt closer, in his post-war writings, to Coomaraswamy, who 'contrary to Rene Guenon and other contemporary "esotericists" [...]developed his
exegesis without surrendering the tools and methods of philology, archaeology, art history, ethnology, folklore, and history of religions'96. The aspect of
his thought that Eliade does not accept is his attitude towards religion, an attitude deriving from 'the growing influence of Guenon's rigid rationalism': 'the
historian of religions is, on the contrary, fascinated by the multiplicity and
variety of the ideas about God's unique mode of being, elaborated in the
course of the millennia, for every theological structure represents a new spiritual creation, a fresh insight and a more adequate grasp of the ultimate reality'9'. In short, against the unity of the Tradition Eliade asserts the multiplicity
of human spiritual creations; against its primordiality he holds that a new
"theological structure" is 'a more adequated grasp of the ultimate reality'.
During his American period Eliade only had one student who worked on
traditional thought: William W. Quinn Jr., who wrote a doctoral dissertation on
Coomaraswamy9g. Quinn is the author of a recent article in which he presents
Eliade as a traditionalist scholar. His argument is based on three main pieces of
evidence: first, the 1937 study mentioned above, in which Eliade speaks of
Coomaraswamy in very complimentary terms, contrasting with him the philologists and specialists who are ignorant of the most important aspect of cultures, the "metaphysical tradition"; secondly, an unpublished letter in which
the expressions of respect and gratitude are repeated and the Indian scholar is
called "master"; thirdly, the essay 'Some notes on Theosophia perennis'
(1979), which has also been mentioned above. To this evidence must be added
the personal experience of the author, who was introduced by Eliade to the
study of Coomaraswamy, supported by him in his decision, opposed by the
Chicago Divinity School, to write a doctoral dissertation on traditional philosophy, and, finally, supervised by him in his research, during the course of
which he frequently had occasion to debate with him questions concerning the
Tradition. So 'I can affirm-and confirm-"',
he writes, 'the primacy of the
sacred Tradition in Eliade's perspective on religions'9. Quinn's impressions
derive in part from personal discussions to which only the American scholar
can be privy and on which, therefore, nothing more can be said. What is possiunderpinnedby his own researchresults'.Thirdly,was Eliadea traditionalist?'No - and if he
was, then ratherwith emotionalemphasesof his own, basedon consciousreflection,and even
that only in his youth' ('MirceaEliade,JuliusEvola', 38).
1 Eliade,'Somenotes', 169.
97Eliade,'Somenotes', 170.
98Recentlypublishedunderthe title TheOnlyTradition.
99Quinn,'MirceaEliadeand the SacredTradition',152.

78
ble is to examine the evidence, which, in his view, attests to Eliade's Traditionalism. In this connection it should be remembered that the 1937 article is part
of that process of assimilation of some traditionalist conceptual categories
whose importance-and
limitations-have
been discussed above; the letter
confirms
the
published by Quinn merely
respect for Coomaraswamy of which
Eliade gave numerous other signs: the fact that the Indian scholar is called
"cher Maitre" is not, as Quinn seems to suggest, proof of the existence of a
the traditionalist sense of the expression-because
spiritual discipleship-in
the French term "maitre" is not particularly strong, especially not for Eliade,
who uses it of many other people besides Coomaraswamy-for
example,
Raffaele Pettazzoni, Vittorio Macchioro, and Giuseppe Tucci, to mention only
those cases which I have been able to verify. As far as the 1979 article is concerned, it should be pointed out that Quinn only quotes the parts that eulogize
Coomaraswamy, and that he avoids mentioning the criticisms, cited above, of
some of the key concepts of traditionalist thought. Lastly, his support for
Quinn's work can of course be explained by the interest that Eliade always
showed in esotericism as an entirely legitimate object of study for a historian
of religions. When Quinn, who had links with theosophist circles, introduced
himself to Eliade, one may well believe that the professor recognized in him
certain enthusiasms that he himself had felt in his youth. Eliade had outgrown
the fascination of theosophy, partly through his exploration of the theories of
Steiner and his reading of Guenon's criticisms of the movement. But then he
had gone beyond the influence of both these scholars and had recognized
Coomaraswamy as a model of a scholar who, without neglecting the idea of
the universality of the religious fact, was attentive to history and philology. It is
therefore understandable that Eliade should have recommended Quinn to read
Coomaraswamy. And it is equally understandable that Quinn, having moved
from theosophy to Traditionalism, as a pupil of Eliade, the only member of the
teaching staff of the Divinity School who was prepared to support his research,
should have wished to see his "mentor" as a traditionalist, and that this desire
was so strong that he did not even notice the clear elements of criticism in
Eliade's references to Coomaraswamy.
Noting Eliade's fondness for Guenon and Evola, Dubuisson has suggested
that his characteristic form of thought is esoteric. His argument rests on three
facts: first, 'the platonic theme of a double meaning (literal/secret; visible/
which, for
invisible) and of two levels of reality (mundane/transcendent)',
Pierre-Andrd Taguieff, was the 'assumption most fundamental to the spirit of
Traditionalism' and which Eliade translates even into the opposition mass61ites; then the fact that Eliade 'defines [...]the attitude towards interpretation
which he expects from his readers': in other words his antireductionism, his

79
belief that religious facts cannot be reduced to their historical determinants: an
attitude which is 'notoriously effective. How many readers have not been led
astray by him and have, due to Eliade, recognized in his thought a message
which transcended all historical conditioning?' 100; thirdly, the presence,
among the religious phenomena that interest Eliade, of 'unusual or unexpected
elements': astrology, parapsychology, premonitory dreams, alchemy, the journal Plante, the secret and initiatic societies, Princeton gnosis, spiritualism,
the theosophical society, the Osiriac mysteries, 'most of the revelations
and subterranean currents of the Christian West, and even religious aspects
of the contemporary counterculture', and the lack of faith, morality, prayer,
charity, grace, virtue, study, love for one's fellow-man, the examination of
conscience, contrition, repentance, etc'o'; in all this Dubuisson sees a celebration of secret and elitist knowledge-which
are contrasted with the distorted
of
the
masses-and
a
of
the Judaeo-Christian tradition'o2.
knowledge
rejection
At this point, he wonders if these facts might place Eliade's work in the category of esotericism. And he tries to demonstrate that this work matches the
four characteristics which Antoine Faivre believes necessary and sufficient for
a defmition of a work as esoteric: 1. 'Belief in the existence of hidden correspondences connecting many different components of the universe, which are
themselves connected to the great scriptures'; 2. Nature considered as 'a book
to be deciphered'; 3. The presence 'of intermediaries-images,
symbols, rituals, spirits - which may be used by the imagination [... ] in order to penetrate
the mysteries which separate the divine from the created world'; 4. A second
birth, a metamorphosis of the individual caused by knowledge. Two other elements are optional: belief in a primordial Tradition"' and initiatic transmission
from master to pupil. Now, all these aspects-except
for the penultimate one
- are, in Dubuisson's view, found in Eliade, and this he takes as proof that 'the
Eliadean understanding of religion and the religious, is nothing more than a
huge and artificial construction inspired by an attitude and by themes belonging to the contemporary esoteric tradition', in particular the tradition which
nourished the fascist regimes104.
It is obvious that what is under examination here is not the object of
Eliade's research-those
"traditional" civilizations in which many of the ele' Dubuisson,'L'6sot6rismefascisantde MirceaEliade', 43.
101Dubuisson,'L'dsot6rismefascisantde MirceaEliade',44 and n. 12.
102Dubuisson,'L'6sotdrismefascisantde MirceaEliade',44.
l03In fact,the firstof the twonon-intrinsic
componentsof esotericism,accordingto Faivre,is
the practiceof concordances,of whichthe beliefin the primordialTraditionis a particularcase
(Faivre,Theosophy,Imagination,Tradition,XXI-XXV,XXIV).
104Dubuisson,`L'rrsotesrisme
fascisantde MirceaEliade', 47.

80
his methodology, or his philosophy of the
ments mentioned are present-but
And
this
history of religions.
philosophy is based on the concept of the symbol,
in particular the natural symbol, as an intermediate reality between human
experience and the sacred, on the idea that through the archetypes one can fmd
the "essences" common to various religions, on the fact that the hermeneutics
of symbols can enhance human creativity-thus
giving rise to a spiritual metanot
These
are
obviously
enough to justify a description
morphosis'5.
aspects
of the Eliadean perspective as "esoteric". Moreover, it does not seem to me
possible to fmd in Eliade's philosophy any affirmations closer than these to the
four elements mentioned by Dubuisson. Antoine Faivre, the author of the definition of esotericism which Dubuisson takes as his basis, notes that `one might
expect that [Eliade] would take an interest in the philosophies of Nature,
which are part of religious history. Eliade does not explicitly state what he
means by Nature, and the small glimpse that he allows us evokes above all
certain forms a rural imaginary, especially that of Central Europe"o6. It is significant, in Faivre's view, that in the "rare texts" in which Eliade discusses
modem western esoteric schools, 'he does not seem to pay much attention to
an idea-force which has a place in a history of religions, that is, the idea of
living Nature, considered both as a network of correspondences or "signatures" that have to be deciphered and as a main character, dramatis persona, in
the cosmic drama'i07. Nor does the second birth of the person who acquires
knowledge exist as such in Eliade: he describes as initiatic trials the various
experiences, spiritual and non-spiritual, which man faces during his life, and
thus uses a concept of initiation which is not only remote from the esoteric
perspective but quite unacceptable with respect to it, as is shown by Guenon's
harsh criticism of those who consider the difficulties of life as initiatic "trials".
Just as this element does not exist, so its consequence, the elitist view of religion, does not exist either: Faivre notes that among the factors that distinguish
Eliade from the Traditionalist school, which he terms "pdrennialiste", is the
Romanian's 'disinclination to assert the spiritual superiority of an elite as
against the popular masses"". Sometimes, says Eliade in a passage already

'5 It may be notedthat theseare generalideaswhichare found-albeit differentlyexpressed

and with differentphilosophicaljustificationsand referents-in manyotherapproachesbesides
Eliade's:they appear,for example,in the religiousphenomenologyof GerardusVander Leeuw,
and in somecontemporaryhermeneuticperspectives,such as that of Paul Ricoeur(for instance,
'Parole et symbole'),who often refersto Eliade,and that of LuigiPareyson(cf. 'Filosofiaed
esperienzareligiosa'),who neverhad any connectionwith Eliade.
'6 Faivre,'L'ambiguitAdellanozionedi sacroin MirceaEliade',369.
107Faivre,'L'ambiguitddellanozionedi sacroin MirceaEliade', 369.
'8 Faivre,'L'ambiguitddellanozionedi sacroin MirceaEliade', 370.

81

quoted in part above, 'the sense of the religiousness of the cosmos becomes
lost. This is what occurs when, in certain more highly evolved societies, the
intellectual elites progressively detach themselves from the patterns of the traditional religion"01. The elites, in other words, far from being the guardians of
traditional religion, are its destroyers. Moreover, Eliade's "Romanianism" involved an exaltation of the worth of the Romanian peasants, who certainly
cannot be described as elites. Even Dubuisson's three premises do not seem
convincing: the distinction between a wordly level and a transcendent level of
Christianity-and
by
reality is a theme shared by many religions-including
the people who adhere to them, so it is not a distinguishing feature of esotericism. That Eliade's message has a literal meaning and a secret one remains to
be proved: Eliade speaks only once of a "secret message" of the Traite, and it
is just an emphatic way of indicating what Eliade calls the 'implicit theology'
of his work, whose meaning may be, according to his own words, 'easily explained' (whose 'sens se d6gage facilement')". Eliade's antireductionismaccording to which religious facts must be considered without reducing them
to their historical determinants-is
merely a philosophical option of a
hermeneutic nature, which does not in itself involve any esoteric elements.
Lastly, the subjects that Eliade chose to discuss and which Dubuisson mentions are not particularly unusual (they have long been the subject of study and
research), represent only certain esoteric schools''' (Faivre speaks, as we have
seen, of the "rare texts" which Eliade devotes to modem esotericism), and are
only considered in a few of the Romanian author's writings (none of which are
among his best known works); and in any case, everyone is free to study what
he likes and there is hardly any need to dwell on the obvious point that criminologists are not necessarily criminals, moralists are not necessarily morally
unimpeachable, and a person who studies esotericism is not necessarily an
esotericist.
More recently, Steven M. Wasserstrom has seen in Eliade an 'inspirational
if not initiatic descent from Martines de Pasqually through Louis-Claude de
Saint-Martin', deriving from Rene Gunonll2. His theory is supported by various pieces of evidence: the first is the use of the term "reintegration", which
Wasserstrom says is characteristic of the Christian Kabbalists, central to
109Das Heilige,
Engl.Transl.,107.
" Eliade,Journal II: 1957-1969,74; For an
explanationof this "implicittheology",see
Spineto,'La nostalgiadel paradiso',296-297.
"' It shouldbe noted,in passing,that Gu6nonwouldnot have acceptedthe lumpingtogether
withinthe categoryof "esotericism"of phenomenasuch as astrology(regardedas a traditional
science),spiritualismand Princetongnosis.
"2 Wasserstrom,Religionafter Religion,38.

82
Guenon and later Evola, and reminiscent of Martines de Pasqually's Traite de
la riintigration
des ttres criis dans leurs primitives proprits, vertus et
puissance spirituelle divines"3; the second is Eliade's reference to the term
"tradition", which allegedly derives from Guenon and, through him, from the
Martinists"4; thirdly, Wasserstrom mentions a lecture given by Eliade to an
audience of masons, and later published in a masonic journal, on initiation
rites in the Jewish and Judaeo-Christian traditions"5, and Eliade's participation in Henry Corbin's project of "Spiritual Chivalry", which found expression
in the foundation of the Universite de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem and whose organ was a series of Cahiers published from 1975 onwards"6; furthermore, he
claims that Eliade's enthusiasm for the themes of the Christian Kabbalah was
manifested in his undergraduate thesis on Italian Renaissance philosophy"'
and that his interest in Evola and Gu6non, which he documents by reference to
some of the texts mentioned above, show that, since Eliade never repudiated
their ideas, he did not disagree with them"8. Wasserstrom's whole book sets
out to demonstrate the links between the positions of Eliade, Corbin and
Scholem, the most important common element between them being their reference to the Christian Kabbalah"9; and this he takes to be an element that inspires the whole history of religions. It is clear that Eliade's relations with
"' The conceptof the "new man" on whichEliadeoften insistsalso occurs in Louis-Claude
de Saint-Martin(Religionafter Religion,132).
"4 Religionafter Religion,40.
"I Religionafter Religion,41. Wasserstromquotesthe passagefrom Eliade:'I feel that, in
initiatorydoctrineand rituals,I havediscoveredthe onlypossibilityof defendingmyselfagainst
the terror of historyand collectivedistress' (not 'desires', as Wasserstromwrite:Journal Il,
1957-1959,86), as evidenceof his personaladherenceto a initiatorysystem.In factthe passage
has a quite differentmeaning,as becomesclearfromthe rest of the passage:'I meanthat if we
succeedin experiencing,taking upon ourselves,or imposinga valueon the terror,the despair,
the depression,the apparentabsenceof meaningin history,as so manyinitiatorytrials-then all
thesecrisesand tortureswilltake on a meaning'(Journal 11.1957-1969,86):in otherwords,the
notionof initiationis a genericone, accordingto whichthe trials and sufferingsof life become
endurableif theyare regardedas opportunitiesof improvingoneself.It is a conception,which,as
has alreadybeen mentioned,seemsunacceptablein the Guenonianperspective.
"6 In an articlepublishedin 1979,Eliadediscussesthe Universitewithoutmentioningthat he
was oneof its foundingmembers.Theomissionis interpretedby Wasserstromas evidenceof his
desireto concealhis links with an esotericmovement(Religionafter Religion,42). But in fact
Eliadeclearlystatesthat he belongedto the associationtwo yearslater,in the diarypublishedby
Gallimard(probablyfar morewidelyread than the articlepublishedin Historyof Religions):it
is, indeed,fromhis ownwordsthat Wasserstromderivesthe evidence(Fragmentsd'un journal
ll, 241).
Religionafter Religion,43.
" 8 Religionafter Religion,46.
The otheraspectsof Wasserstrom'sstudywouldrequirea longerdiscussionthan is possible here and one whichwouldtake us beyondthe confinesof the subjectunder consideration.

83

Scholem and Corbin cannot be considered decisive evidence of the esoteric

nature of his work. So all that remains is the other arguments outlined above,
and these seem weak: the use of the term "reintegration" is probably a reference to the traditionalists, as we have seen, but it is not evidence of a link
between Eliade and the Christian Kabbalah 120 ;the same is true of the term
tradition, which the Romanian scholar uses in a sense different from Gudnon's;
his lecture on initiation to an audience of masons and his participation-which
Corbin's project of spiritual chivalry are of
was actually only nominal-in
course not decisive proofl21 ;and his degree thesis-as far as we know, for only
the esoteric elements of the Italian Renaissance
part of it is extant-discusses
without devoting particular attention to the Christian Kabbalah or expressing
any predilection for it. Finally, it is not true that Eliade does not explicitly
distance himself from the positions of Guenon and Evola. In short, on a close
inspection of the evidence Wasserstrom's construction does not seem convincing.
Eliade's reinterpretation

of traditional thought.

If one considers the evidence which recent research has made available to
scholars, two main factors may be said to have influenced Eliade's intellectual
development: the first is the Romanian cultural climate and, particularly, the
teaching of Nae Ionescu, through whom the young Romanian student-and
later scholar--came also into contact with late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries German culture'zz; the second is his reading of the traditionalists, and
in particular of Coomaraswamy. In both cases we may speak of a profound
influence, which concerned some essential themes, but not a total influence.
Neither Ionescu's general approach, nor traditional philosophy as such, fmd
Much less does it indicatea politicalprogramme.Wasserstromquotesa passagewhere
Evolaspeaksof "reintegration"withina politicalprojectopposedto democracyand socialism;
then he mentionsa passage,surprisinglyconsideringit politicalin nature,whereEliademerely
states that the religiousimagesof the peasants,with Christianization,were re-evaluatedand
reintegrated,and acquirednewnames;he concludesby quotingthe expression'everyreintegration is a "totalization"(JournalI, 26), on which he comments:'this totalization,by definition
"total", patentlydoes not excludethe politicaldimensionof social existence' (Religionafter
Religion,47) :an obviousstatementbut one whichaddsnothingto our knowledge.In any case,
by "totalization"Eliadehere means"totalityof Life"(JournalI, 26).
'2' In 1959,Eliadegaveanotherlecturebeforean audienceof Freemasons.He wroteaboutit:
'Henry [Hunwald]explainsthat I am the only "noninitiate";the rest of thoseattendingare Masons. [...]I was askedwhy I don't becomea Mason(I, who knowits symbolismso well,etc.),
and I replyvaguelythat I am not attractedto Masonry'(Journal,17june 1959,unpublished).
'22Ionescu'sinfluenceon Eliade's developmentis stressedin particularby Danca,Mircea
Eliade, 20-71.

84
any place in the form of thought which Eliade gradually develops and which
reaches its definitive formulation after the Second World War.
The notion of the "symbol" which he encountered in Ionescu's courses acquires, through his stay in India, the density of lived experience; through his
reading of the traditionalists Eliade becomes aware of how it may be used as
the basis of historico-religious research and takes it as the key concept of his
own approach. However, during his time in India he had also discovered the
value of the sacred that descends into everyday life: from this he derives the
idea of an opposition and reconciliation of sacred and profane, which constitutes the basis of that new formulation of the concept of the symbol which is
hierophany. A second key theme of Eliade's thought, that of the archetype, is
also partly indebted to the traditional perspective, as are some characteristic
motifs ofEliadian hermeneutics: the sacred centre, construction as a repetition
of cosmogony, androgyny, and reintegration.
Without a reading of the traditionalists, therefore, the birth of the new conceptual system that appears in Eliade's works around 1936-37 would be incomprehensible. But from a reading of the traditionalists alone, not even the
key concepts of his idea of the history of religions would be comprehensible.
On the one hand, the concept of the symbol and that of the archetype are fitted
into a conceptual framework which Eliade derives from German philosophy:
from the echoes of phenomenology, from Diltheyan historicism, from Ottian
neo-Kantianism, and from Kierkegaard's Christian thought, which he knows
through Ionescu or through his own private reading; on the other hand, his
are for him the field of application of
studies in the history of religions-which
those concepts-are
embodied in figures such as Raffaele Pettazzoni, with his
attention to the becoming and the newness of history. All these elements, along
with others which he gradually acquires as his reading progresses, blend together to form the concept of the history of religions which Eliade first formulates in the Traite d'histoire des religions.
NataleSpineto(1964)teachesHistoryof Religionsat the Departmentof Historyof TurinUniversity.

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87
MirceaEliade e il Tradizionalismo
Nell'ampialetteraturacriticache ha riguardato,in questiultimianni,la biografiaintellettualedi
Eliade,uno dei settoriin cui sono stati dati contributipi nuovied originali statoquellodella
scopertae quindidellavalutazionedel rapportocon studiosilegatial cosiddetto"pensierotradizionale":in particolareRenGunon,Julius Evola,AnandaK. Coomaraswamy.
Scopodel presentestudio prenderein esamei documentirelativia questotemae fare un bilaciodei risultati
raggiunti,per stabilirequantola letturadei tradizionalistiabbiarealmenteinfluitosull'operadi
Eliade.Dall'analisidei lavoridel periodoromenorisultache alcuniconcetticentralie caratteristicidel pensieroeliadianoderivano,almenoper alcunitratti talvoltafondamentali,direttamente
dall'utilizzodegli scritti dei tradizionalisti:si tratta delle nozionidi corrispondenzaantropocosmica,di simbolo,di centrosacro,di qualit"ciclica"del tempotradizionale,di costruzione
umanacomeripetizionedella cosmogonia,di sacrificiocomereintegrazione,di androginia,di
archetipo.Terminie concezionitradizionalistevengonotuttaviaintegratida Eliadeall'internodi
un quadroconcettualedifferente,che non ammetteil motivofondamentaledel tradizionalismo:
l'idea di una Tradizioneprimordialemetafisicae immutabile.Nelleoperedel dopoguerrai riferimentiai tradizionalistisonorari ed Eliadeprendechiaramentele distanzedalleloroconcezioni. In generale,bisognaosservareche il contattocon le operedei tradizionalistiha impressouna
svolta al pensierodello studiosoromeno,ma che gli stimoliprovenientida Gunon,Evolae
sonostati inseritiin una grigliaconcettualedifferente,per la ricostruzionedella
Coomaraswamy
qualeoccorretenerecontodell'ambienteculturaleromenoed anche,pi in generale,del dibattito intellettualeeuropeodel tempo.