The Birth And Death of Meaning

This is a fundamental text for religious scholarship and for living an examined life.Eliade wastes no time trying to explain or define the experience of the sacred in terms of other disciplines (for instance, the sacred as psychological experience (Campbell) or the sacred as sociological phenomenon (Burkert)). Instead, he examines the sacred as sacred. Eliade shows how sacred space and sacred time are supremely REAL space and time, permanent and eternal in opposition to the fluid space and time of the profane world. Homo religiosus re-enacts the primordial deeds of the gods in his rites and, indeed (unlike modern man), in all his acts, because only those primordial acts are truly real. Likewise, irruptions of sacred phenomena into profane space create sacred space, space which is created, which is eternal, which is real.
Read this book before undertaking any serious study of comparative religion. Read this book along with other classics about thought. Read this book and consider your own experience of the sacred. But whatever you do, read this book.

The details of my (and my brother’s) birth are unknown. My memories begin in Latvia. DNA tests strongly indicate that we are of Belarusian-Jewish origin, meaning that we might have been born in southeastern Latvia or in Belarus bordering on southern Latvia. Our mother is listed as “Miss Sinegins” in our personal records. Russian authorities stated our years of birth, mine 1937, my brother’s 1939. We plucked the specific dates out a bowl.

The details of my (and my brother’s) birth are unknown. My memories begin in Latvia. DNA tests strongly indicate that we are of Belarusian-Jewish origin, meaning that we might have been born in southeastern Latvia or in Belarus bordering on southern Latvia. Our mother is listed as “Miss Sinegins” in our personal records. Russian authorities stated our years of birth, mine 1937, my brother’s 1939. We plucked the specific dates out a bowl.