Customer Reviews

Eros, Magic and the Murder of Professor Culianu

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The shot that killed professor Ioan Culianu while he was sitting in a stall in the men's room came from a small Beretta: a .25 caliber gun, fired at leat 18 inches away from his head, for there were no gunpowder traces around the entry wound. It was the work of an expert, a person who stood on the toilet seat of the adjoining stall, and fired downward and into the back of his head; probably the shot of a left hander. Why only one shot? Why such a small caliber gun? Professionals are more heavy handed, more redundant, more brutal. This was exquisitely done, with minimal fuss and no traceable clues.

It was May, 1991, a little after one in the afternoon, at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Prof Culianu, a handsome man in his 40's had three books in press, was about to get married, was loved and respected by students and faculty, and was at the peak of his profession as a historian of religion. His work was recognized internationally, and he could look forward to the honors and comforts of a successful academic career.

Ted Anton presents the true tale of Prof. Culianu with deftness and care. It is a story that to this day continues to reverberate in academia and law enforcement because it has never been solved. Far more exciting than fiction, the story of this professor takes turns and dips that keep the reader on edge and breathless.Culianu was an expert not only on the traditional aspects of religions, but had an interest in the occult arts that formed part of the ancient rituals and practices. He was an expert in divination through geomancy, and was about to teach a course in this practice. He gravitated towards the occult. He knew about near death experiences and about the transmigration of souls; and at the same time he maintained his status as a legitimate scholar and teacher in one of America's prestigious universities.

Fictional stories about crimes and police work are very enjoyable, but reading a book like this renders the others insignificant by comparison. Of course truth is stranger than fiction, but it is also more exciting, more interesting, and finally...more scary.

If you enjoyed Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_, you will undoubtedly enjoy this true life tale of magic, European politics, and murder. The book gives an accounting of the life of Ioan Culianu, a professor of comparative religion at the University of Chicago, from his birth in Romania to his untimely murder. Professor Culianu provided astounding insights into the world of magic and attempted to explain its occurrences through complexity. He published many books on magic, comparative religion, shamanism, and gnosticism. Like Mircea Eliade, a fellow Romanian and his mentor before him, Culianu contributed a great deal to our understanding of religion and magic. He also wrote several novels along with his fiancee Hillary Wiesner. This book provides a look into not only the worlds of Eliade and Culianu, but also a disturbing examination of far-right politics in Romania. Culianu's murder remains unsolved despite its obvious link to his outspoken views on the Romanian revolution which occurred just prior to his murder. However, many disturbing coincidences abound regarding this event.

Culiano taught religious studies at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago--the hand-picked successor to the great Mircea Eliade. Culiano specialized in magic, dualistic heresies and mystical experiences. He practiced what he studied as well, entertaining students and aggravating colleagues. But he also wrote political articles and fiction for a Romanian journal. These got him in trouble with the Romanian secret police; his murder has never been solved.

Blending religious studies, occult phenomena, political analysis, and true crime journalism, this book is also an entertaining and intriguing look at Culiano, academics in America, Romanian intellectual traditions. I hope many people read and enjoy it.

This is an insightful look at the life and work of a brilliant Romanian scholar and exile, and at the frightening overseas activities of the Romanian secret police in the post-communist years. Written in a clear, elegant style, with plenty of references to Culianu's writings and glimpses at his complicated personal interactions, this book is a great read. As the author concludes, Culianu "left a legacy of the dangers of a life of the mind." Without this biography, his undeserved fate may well be forgotten.

Normally, when I see a title such as this, I'm a little nervious. It's easy to associate the very worst in yellow journalism with so-called "true crime" novels. So, it was with a bit of apprehension that I picked up _Eros, Magic, & the Murder of Professor Culianu. The adage, "never judge a book by its cover," can be legitimately applied to this book. From the beginning, I was fascinated by Culianu and his relationships to Mircea Eliade and Romania. Comparative religion is one of my fields of interest, and here is the tragic story of a man who made an incredible impact on that field. But it's not just the story of one man. Anton skillfully weaves Culianu's ideas throughout, leaving the reader with a feel for Culianu's ideas as well as his life. This is no mean feat. Anton's prose is clean and spare, granting us a clearer view of an incredible thinker.

Thought the title may be misleading, Anton's book about the never-ending quest for knowlage of a very intellectual Prof. Culianu is quite extential. Though he took four years to create it, the detail he shows through the litterary sense is astounding. He paints Culianu's life in such a way that he makes this great scholar's life and breakthroughs in the feild of comparitive religon illuminated to the rest of the world. This is a great work and does the late Ioan Culianu well.

I first heard of the murder of Professor Culianu when I was an undergrad at the University of Chicago. I was immediately drawn to find more about the man who allegedly believed in the magic he studied. After reading "Eros and Magic" and "Out of this World", I thought that this biography might shed some additional light on the man, his scholarship, and his occult dabblings.

I must admit I was somewhat disappointed. The book is very dry and factually oriented. The facts themselves appear to be well-researched, but are simply presented without much else. Mr. Anton tells us where Prof. Culianu was born, where he studied, what books he wrote, but seldom goes deeper than that.
Ironically, given the themes in Culianu's work and life, Mr. Anton fails to realize the importance of evoking the imagination in telling the story, to bring the facts to life in a meaningful, interesting way.

There are only the slightest hints of the exciting ideas that motivated Prof. Culianu's scholarship and personal life.
It is said that Prof. Culianu took a personal interest interest in the ideas he was studying, actually practicing divination and teaching a course on it. But rather than exploring in any depth either Prof. Culianu's professional ideas or personal interests, these facts are simply used as "hooks" to carry the reader along.

If you are interested in the ideas of Prof. Culianu and/or his interest in occult scholarship, this book will probably disappoint you. If you are looking for a lot of biographical facts about Prof. Culianu, then this book may be for you.

This is not a murder account. This is not a book on a college professor. This is not a political treatise. It is all of these and more. I have to admit that the only reason this doesn't get five stars from me is that for some reason I found Anton's partially objective stance a little too distanced and artificial. But the story itself is fascinating. Culiano was a brilliant new mind, so brilliant that he was reversing the skeptical prejudices about magic, divination and other mystic arts not by trying to embrace a pixyish New Age philosophy but by showing through huge amounts of scholarship the fact that there are different magisteria for such things as rational thought and on the other hand these forms of intuitive symbolic thinking. Culiano was a major scholar outside the US and the inheritor of Mircea Eliade's scholastic dominion. He was also a Romanian and though he tried to stay out of it, he was drawn into a web of surveillance and other hidden pressures as "occult" in the true meaning of the word as anything he studied. There should be more here, but even the hint of the story and the truth is intriguing.

The life and murder of Professor Culianu should have made an interesting story. However, the book was boring, it did not match Culianu's reputation and great work.

When I stepped into class one day in March, I was expecting a visiting author from the near-by college. What I didn't expect was to see Anton sitting at the head of my high-school class room. Whether he was there to press his book or not, I was intrigued about Prof. Culianu. When i bought his book, I truely learned about the professor's yearning for knowlege. This was a very intelectual read for the continuing student.