Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (Torchbooks) (Paperback)

by Mircea Eliade (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Organizing data from cultures the world over, Eliade lays out the basic patterns of initiation: group puberty rituals, entrance into secret cults, shamanic instruction, individual visions, and heroic rites of passage. The vast information, assembled so beautifully, transcends usual scholarship. Eliade affirms the greater experience in all initiations--the indissoluable ties between humans and the cosmos of gods, spirits, animals, ancestors, and nature. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins College Div; New edition edition (June 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061312363
• ISBN-13: 978-0061312366
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #739,427 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: Transitions and Rituals, December 6, 2004

By	Ian M. Slater "aylchanan" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (Paperback)

This little book is a translation of a series of half a dozen lectures, with endnotes providing documentation. The history and bibliography are a little tricky. "Patterns of Initiation: The Haskell Lectures of 1956" were delivered at the University of Chicago by Mircea Eliade, a Romanian exile who had been recruited from the Sorbonne to help build up the University's Comparative Religion department. The lectures were composed in French, Eliade's main second language, and the English translation by Willard Trask was published in 1958, by Harvill Press, London, and Harper & Brothers, New York, as "Birth and Rebirth." (I have reviewed the Harper edition, used copies of which are sometimes available through Amazon: the full title, as given there, is "Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human Culture," in The Library of Religion and Culture series.)

The present title, "Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth," was introduced with the Harper Torchbook paperback edition of 1965. (The publisher had meanwhile become Harper & Row; and today is included in HarperCollins.) There was a Harper College Division reprinting in 1980. The current edition, from Spring Publications, has a new Foreword (by Michael Meade), but seems to be otherwise identical.

Meanwhile, a rather different French edition ("a rehandling of the material") had been published as "Naissances mystiques. Essai sur quelques types d'initiation" (Paris, 1959). (That makes three versions and four titles, if you've lost count. And a variety of textually identical editions of the English-language version.)

Eliade (1907-1986) remained connected to the University of Chicago for pretty much the rest of his life. Although from an institutional point of view he wasn't quite the well-organized driving force that had been desired, he continued to produce interesting and exciting work, not all of which has aged equally well. (For a short account of Eliade's life, work, and an evaluation of his place in the twentieth century, see "The Politics of Myth: A Study of C.G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell," by Robert S. Ellwood.)

"Rites and Symbols" is one of a large number of small works by Eliade which stand alongside such monuments of scholarship as "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy," and "Yoga: Immortality and Freedom," and the attempted summation of his views in the three completed volumes of his "History of Religious Ideas."

The material it contains makes it something of a companion to "Shamanism" in particular, giving a more universal context to the initiatory experiences and rituals described there. It deals with ritual responses to "changes of status" in traditional societies, from the commonly recognized "Rites of Passage" (as delineated in Arnold van Gennep's classic book of that name), such as Birth, Adult-hood, and Death, to cultural constructs, such as entry into secret societies, or the company of Gods and Ancestors.

The original lecture-series title, "Patterns of Initiation," is in some ways the best, suggesting at once that Eliade is focusing on recurring themes, rather than unique instances. The more poetic titles, at least of the English-language version, may have been used because a translation of an earlier work had been published already as "Patterns in Comparative Religion."

I think that it remains useful, although according to the classicist Fritz Graf it "remains as superficial as it is dogmatic" ("Magic in the Ancient World," page 264, note 15). I would call it, rather, schematic, concise, and sometimes poorly argued. The documentation, although now obviously rather dated, often is more impressive than the slender body of quotations Eliade provides in his survey of a vast number of times and places. There are also some minor problems with the translation; probably inevitably, with the number of languages involved, in Eliade's own mind as well as the source materials he was using.

I'm not about to give up my aging copy of the Harper Torchbook edition; but Spring Publications deserves gratitude for bringing the book back into print.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic on the subject of initiation, May 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rites and Symbols of Initiation (Hardcover)

Anyone planning a initiation into manhood (or woman hood) or rite of passage should know about this book. It is number one most referenced source of information on initiation in traditional cultures. No one can say they understand the legacy of initiation in primative or traditional cultures without reading this book.

Although it is a academic quality work it is very readable. The layman should have no problem understanding it. My only complaint about this book is that I wish it were longer.

5.0 out of 5 stars Important classic, worth reading, November 12, 2008

By	Chris Travers "Einhverfr" (Chelan, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (Paperback)

In this work, Eliade explores the general approaches to initiation found among archaic cultures and how these have survived or not in historical traditions. While the work can in no way claim to be complete, it is a classic in its field, like so much of Eliade's work.

Eliade utilizes a comparative methodology in looking for universal or nearly universal patterns in comparative religion. Here he looks at archaic initiation ceremonies in the Americas, Australia, and Africa, and compares these with India, Christianity, and historical Greece. The general parallels in symbolism and patter that he shows are quite meaningful and can help people understand related topics.

Highly recommended for anyone studying this topic.