Publication Details
„Archaic Ontology“ in Mircea Eliade’s Conception of Religion
Abstract
The religious man of archaic tradition conceives of the universe as Being and of the profane world as Non-Being. Therefore, he wants to live as close as possible to the centre appointed by a sacred ritual. Beyond this centre he is threatened by the shapeless and pointless nothingness, chaos, relativity and bad powers. In his wandering through the profane world the religious man is deprived of his ontic substance. Thus the Homo religiosus „dissolves“ in chaos, bringing to an end his very existence. This gives rise to man’s „ontological starvation“, his longing for being.
In the sacral world, the most striking is the religious man’s will to stay in the core of reality, from which the universe began to expand, where he can talk with gods and where he feels close to the divinity.