84 Quotes by Mircea Eliade

Without conscious rituals of loss and renewal, individuals and societies lose the capacity to experience the sorrows and joy that are essential for feeling fully human. Without them life flattens out, and meaning drains from both living and dying. Soon there is a death of meaning and an increase in meaningless deaths.

Every ritual repetition of the cosmogony is preceded by a symbolic retrogression to chaos. In order to be created anew, the old world must first be annihilated.

Si mai era ceva, un amanunt care m-a obsedat apoi multa vreme: mana intreaga parea goala, degetele acelea palide si nervoase erau parca facute anume ca sa poarte un inel, si inelul acesta le lipsea. Era o mana pura, nelogodita, monahala...

The majority of initiatory ordeals more or less clearly imply a ritual death followed by resurrection or a new birth. The central moment of every initiation is represented by the ceremony symbolizing the death of the novice and his return to the fellowship of the living. But he returns to life a new man, assuming another mode of being. Initiatory death signifies the end at once of childhood, ignorance, and the profane condition.

Perhaps never before in history has the artist been so certain that the more daring, iconoclastic, absurd, and inaccessible he is, the more he will be recognized, praised, spoiled, idolatrized. In some countries the result has even been an academicism in reverse, the academicism of the “avant-garde” – to such a point that any artistic experience that makes no concessions to this new conformism is in danger of being stifled or ignored.

A religious symbol conveys its message even if it is no longer consciously understood in every part. For a symbol speaks to the whole human being and not only to the intelligence.

Am sentimentul vag ca libertatea individuala este o stare imperfecta de libertate, vorbi el in cele din urma, putin plictisit. Recunosc! un foarte vag si aproximativ sentiment. Cred, insa, ca o libertate colectiva, a speciei umane daca se poate, sau macar a unei anumite ramuri a acestei specii – este mult mai grandioasa, mult mai euforica...

Alchemy posed as a sacred science, whereas chemistry came into its own when substances had shed their sacred attributes.

The sexual classification of ores and stones was maintained in the alchemical writings and lapidaries of the Middle Ages;.