First published in 1951, "Shamanism" soon became the standard work in the study of this mysterious & fascinating phenomenon. Writing as the founder of the modern study of the history of religion, Romanian emigre--scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-86) survey
In the classic text The Sacred and the Profane, famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade trac
An informative guide to the modern mythologies. This classic study, translated from the original French, deals primarily with societies around the world in which myth is--or was until very recently--"living," in the sense that it supplies models for human
Organizing data from cultures the world over, Eliade lays out the basic patterns of initiation: group puberty rites, entrance into secret cults, shamanic instruction, individual visions, and heroic rites of passage. The vast information, assembled so beau
In this landmark book the renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, exploring how its guiding principle, that of freedom, involves remaining in the world without letting oneself be exhausted by suc
Les trois tomes de l' "Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses" - "De l'âge de la pierre aux mystères d'Eleusis" (1975), "De Gautama Bouddha au triomphe du christianisme" (1978) et "De Mahomet à l'âge des Réformes" (1983) - représentent une
In this "magnificant book" (T.S. Eliot), Ernst Robert Curtius (1886-1956), one of the foremost literary scholars of this century, examines the continuity of European literature from Homer to Goethe, with particular emphasis on the Latin Middle Ages. In an
The World Is Not Enough re-creates medieval life. This first of Zoe Oldenbourg's acclaimed historical novels chronicles the lives of a remarkable gallery of people in twelfth century France and the catastrophic upheavals of the Second and Third Crusades.
Thomas Mann's bold and disturbing novella, written in 1952, is the feminine counterpart of his masterpiece Death in Venice. Written from the point of view of a woman in what we might now call mid-life crisis, The Black Swan evinces Mann's mastery of psych
