Insieme panindiano di tecniche spirituali, simbolo e summa di una cultura radicalmente diversa da quella occidentale, lo Yoga è divenuto uno dei miti della nostra epoca, punto di fuga verso una riacquisizione di valori spirituali che paiono dimenticati da una civiltà, come la nostra, pragmatica, accelerata e tecnologica. Mircea Eliade, insigne storico delle religioni, ha affrontato concretamente, di persona, l'itinerario yoga verso la liberazione. Quest'opera, frutto di un lungo soggiorno in India, si propone di offrire una sintesi ricca, ma accessibile anche ai non specialisti, dello Yoga classico e delle dottrine, dei metodi e del simbolismo yoga espressi nel buddhismo, nel tantrismo, nell'alchimia, nel folklore e nella devozione popolare.
In volume 2 of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Christianity—all are encompassed in this volume.
"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"
It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today.Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent.In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing.Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten.Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.
In The Quest Mircea Eliade stresses the cultural function that a study of the history of religions can play in a secularized society. He writes for the intelligent general reader in the hope that what he calls a new humanism "will be engendered by a confrontation of modern Western man with unknown or less familiar worlds of meaning." "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 anyone seriously concerned with man and his religious possibilities."—Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religious Education
Demonstrates universal religious experience and shows how humanity's effort to
live within a sacred sphere has manifested itself in myriad cultures from
ancient to modern times; and, how certain beliefs, rituals, symbols, and myths
have, with interesting variations, persisted.
Originally published under the title FROM PRIMITIVES TO ZEN, this comprehensive anthology contains writings vital to all the major non-Western religious traditions, arranged thematically. Here are colorful descriptions of deities, creation myths, depictions of death and the afterlife, teachings on the relationship between humanity and the sacred, religious rituals and practices, prayer and hymns.
