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Tag Archives: Mircea Eliade

Magical Mystery Moments

May 3, 2017
EMOTIONS, RITE/RITUAL, THINKING AND THOUGHT
5 Comments

“MAGIC MOMENTS” : Magic moments, when two hearts are carin’ // Magic moments, mem’ries we’ve been sharing … Time can’t erase the memory of // These magic moments filled with love … Magic moments filled with love  [Songwriters: Burt Bacharach / Hal David.  “Magic Moments” lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC]

“There’s a magic and mystery in positive events.”  –Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, psychologist

The term magic has a variety of meanings, hence there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is or how it can be used.  However, some treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose.  The explanatory power of magic should not be underestimated, however.  Both in the past and in the modern world, magical belief systems can provide explanations for otherwise difficult or impossible to understand phenomena while providing a spiritual and metaphysical grounding for the individual.  [See “Magic” in Wikipedia.]

“It’s a mystery!”  –Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

“…moments of epiphany, or revelation, of radiance…with meaning essentially wordless, for words are always qualifications and limitations.”  –Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Persons who come for therapy do so because they lack power; they complain that they cannot achieve.  …  Patients want ‘magical knowledge,’ and no matter how correctly the therapist explains that insight is not magic, it still feels that way to the person when an insight ‘dawns.’”  –Rollo May, “Faust in the Twentieth Century” in The Cry for Myth (1991).

“There is no myth which is not the unveiling of a ‘mystery,’ the revelation of a primordial event which inaugurated either a constituent structure of reality or a kind of human behavior.  [But] when no longer assumed to be a revelation of the ‘mysteries,’ the myth becomes ‘decadent,’ obscured; it turns into a tale or a legend.”  –Mircea Eliade, “Preface” in Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (1957)

“MEMORY”:  Midnight // Not a sound from the pavement // Has the moon lost her memory // She is smiling alone // In the lamplight…  Memory // All alone in the moonlight // …I remember the time I knew what happiness was // Let the memory live again // … Tonight will be a memory too // And a new day will begin // …  –Andrew Lloyd Webber, T. S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, Zdenek Hruby • © Universal Music Publishing Group, Imagem Music Inc.

interrobang  MagicalMysteryTourDoubleEPcover.jpgMagical Mystery Tour

 

“HEY, MISTER, GOT THE TIME?” TIME AFTER TIME

November 2, 2016
AUTHORS, RITE/RITUAL, UNIVERSAL TRUTHS

“Religious man experiences two kinds of time: profane and sacred.  The one is an evanescent duration, the other a ‘succession of eternities,’ periodically recoverable during the festivals that made up the sacred calendar.  The liturgical time of the calendar flows in a closed circle; it is the cosmic time of the year, sanctified by the works of the gods.”  Mircea Eliade,   The Sacred and the Profane

“There is a time for everything, and for everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to harvest what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time not to embrace.  A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew, and a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.  And there is a time to love, yet a time to hate; a time for war, but also a time for peace.”  –Ecclesiastes 3.1-8.

 …And I’m not alone,
While my love is near me,
And I know, it will be so, till it’s time to go…
So come the storms of winter,
and then the birds in spring again.
I do not fear the time.
Who knows how my love grows?
Who knows where the time goes?  –Sandy Denny / Judy Collins

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“MYTHOPOEIC”

May 4, 2015
RITE/RITUAL
1 Comment

What? Mystical, cosmological, sociological, pedagogical.

“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
…
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

* * *

J. Campbell.  M. Eliade.  C. Jung.  B. Bettelheim.  R. May.  N. Frye.  P. Wheelwright

Living a myth implies a genuinely religious experience, differing from the ordinary experience of everyday life, re-enacting fabulous, exalting, significant events.

“The bard is sacred to the gods and is their priest.” –John Milton

Ovid.  Whitman.  Milton.  Thoreau.

We live the myth ceremonially or by our performing the ritual [the “doing”; rite is the “how to do”]: in one way or another, we “live” the myth in the sense that we are “seized by the sacred, exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted.” –Eliade

Employee-Wash-Hands-Sign-NHE-13171_300Simple hand washing?

The Lavabo: Latin for wash (or bathe).  In the ancient church, the priest would clean his hands after receiving gifts of oil, food, and other goods.

“The priest then begins to recite Psalm 26: “I wash my hands in innocence”: Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas.”

“When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, . . .he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood,’ he said.” –Matthew 27:24 (NIV)

“Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands?” –Mrs. Macbeth

Surgical Hand Scrubs: “There is a standard procedure for surgical hand antisepsis, gowning, and gloving which is based on current evidence, best practice, and validated research.” –Every medical-surgical instruction manual.

“Get up there and wash your hands before dinner!”–Mom

lava soap bars