Eternal Return (Eliade)
The "Eternal return" is, according to the theories of religious historian Mircea Eliade, a belief, expressed (sometimes implicitly, but often explicitly) in religious behavior, in the ability to return to the mythical age, to become contemporary with the events described in one's myths. It should be distinguished from the philosophical concept of eternal return.
Read more about Eternal Return (Eliade): Sacred and Profane, Origin As Power, Sacred Time, Myths, Rituals, and Their Purpose, Cyclic Time, Human Creativity, "Terror of History", Terror of The Eternal Return, Scholarly Criticism, References in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words eternal and/or return:
“What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The soul establishes itself.
But how far can it swim out through the eyes
And still return safely to its nest?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)