In this landmark book, first published in English in 1958, renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga.

First published in English in 1958, the author lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, providing a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest antecedents in the Vedas through the twentieth century.

" "Each of these essays contains insights which will be fruitful and challenging for professional students of religion, but at the same time they all retain the kind of cultural relevance and clarity of style which makes them accessible to ...

The new edition of The Forge and the Crucible contains an updated appendix, in which Eliade lists works on Chinese alchemy published in the past few years. He also discusses the importance of alchemy in Newton's scientific evolution.

It is not without fear and trembling that a historian of religion approaches the problem of myth. This is not only because of that preliminary embarrassing question: what is intended by myth? It is also because the answers given depend for the most part on the documents selected by the scholar. From Plato and Fontenelle to Schelling and Bultmann, philosophers and theologians have proposed innumerable definitions of myth. But all of these have one thing in common: they are based on (...) the analysis of Greek mythology. Now, for a historian of religions this choice is not a very happy one. It is true that only in Greece did myth inspire and guide epic poetry, tragedy and comedy, as well as the plastic arts; but it is no less true that it is especially in Greek culture that myth was submitted to a long and penetrating analysis, from which it emerged radically ‘de-mythicised’. If in every European language the word ‘myth’ denotes a ‘fiction’, it is because the Greeks proclaimed it to be such twenty-five centuries ago. What is even more serious for an historian of religion: we do not know a single Greek myth within its ritual context. Of course this is not the case with the paleo-Oriental and Asiatic religions; it is especially not the case with the so-called ‘primitive’ religions. As is well known, a living myth is always connected with a cult, inspiring and justifying a religious behaviour. None of this of course means that Greek myth should not figure in an investigation of the mythical phenomenon. But it would seem unwise to begin our kind of inquiry by the study of Greek documents, and even more so to restrict it to such documents. The mythology which informs Homer, Hesiod and the tragic poets represents already a selection and an interpretation of archaic materials, some of which had become almost unintelligible. In short, our best chance of understanding the structure of mythical thought is to study cultures where myth is a ‘living thing’, where it constitutes the very ground of the religious life; in other words, where myth, far from indicating a fiction , is considered to reveal the truth par excellence. (shrink)

"No one has done so much as Mr. Eliade to inform literature students in the West about 'primitive' and Oriental religions.... Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision."—Martin E. Marty, New York Times Book Review.

This French translation of the original English play, The Endless Column by Mircea Eliade, summarizes the philosophy of artist and philosopher, Constantin Brancusi. Probes the meaning of Brancusi's work and his silence after his well-known India visit. According to the play, the fact that Brancusi did not accomplish his Meditation Monument was due to the difficulty in putting the light of human contemplation into sculpture.

20 November 1942 Writing the article, “Dor - A suadade romena” for Acção, I read again Eminescu’s “Mai am un singur dor”. Heretofore I believed that it has to do with his desire for reintegration in the Cosmos. Now I’m beginning to think it’s something else: the desire to find again, through death, his true cosmic family . Not reintegration - but the return home, to his own.

Archétypes et répétitions. Régénération du temps. "Malheur" et "histoire". Terreur de l'histoire. Quatre longs chapitres qui interrogent les conceptions fondamentales des sociétés archaïques et la révolte de celles-ci contre le temps historique. [SDM].

Le yoga comme discipline spirituelle, d'après le traité "Yoga-Sutra" de Patanjali (2 siècles avant notre ère).