Rites and symbols of initiation : the mysteries of birth and rebirth / Mircea Eliade ; translated from the French by Willard R. Trask ; and with a new foreward by Michael Meade.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eliade, Mircea, 1907-1986.

Standardized Title:

Naissances mystiques. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Initiation rites--Religious aspects.

Initiation rites.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 175 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Birth and rebirth.

Place of Publication:

Woodstock, Conn. : Spring Publications ; [New York] : Distributed in the U.S. by Continuum Pub. Group, [1995]

Summary:

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 beautifully, transcends usual scholarship. Eliade always affirms the greater experience in all initiations - the indissoluble tie between humans and the cosmos of Gods, spirits, animals ancestors, and nature. The absence of initiation in our culture has left modern men and women often isolated from each other, from the invisible powers beyond, and from the myths that sustain daily life. The primal soul desire for symbolic rituals pushes youth into substitutes for initiatory experience: gangs, suicide, car crashes, teenage pregnancy, street drugs. These "symptoms" show the unquenchable urge for existential transformation and the need for elders, mentors, and rituals. This book is about crossing - from confusion to knowledge, from innocence to experienced elder.

Notes:

Originally published: Birth and rebirth. New York : Harper Bros., 1958, in series: The Library of religion and culture. With a new foreword.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-165) and index.

ISBN:

0882143581

OCLC:

37726049