Mircea Eliade

188 pages ; 18 cm

A comprehensive guide to the history, beliefs, concepts, practices, and major figures of religions past and present.

Examines the religions of ancient China, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, and Christianity, and explores each one's philosophical concepts.

This volume presents the stories of the world's shamans and medicine men, prophets and founders of religion. The spiritual techniques, mystical experiences and religious beliefs collected here are evidence of the practice of religion, and of its vitality, in different times and places throughout history.

Discusses how computers and computer devices are helping disabled people learn new skills, communicate better with others, and become more independent. Appendices list organizations, products, and manufacturers.

Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. of cover.

509 p. ; 19 cm

The short-sighted adolescent is a passionate reader who takes various cultural figures as models, trying to emulate both their lives or their works. The pupil protagonist is a poor student, who likes science and reads a lot of books, sometimes staying up all night to do so. At the age of 17, he decides to write a novel to demonstrate to his teachers that he is not as mediocre as his other classmates, and that he is prepared to give up everything he holds dear in order to do so. The novel is written in a number of notebooks - the 'diary' of the title - but our myopic hero ultimately fails 3 subjects and has to repeat the school year. Set in the Romanian capital in the early 20th century, from the perspective of a schoolboy's diary of his daily life, - his teachers, his classmates' academic and amorous rivalries, his first sexual experiences - we are introduced to the themes of religion, self-knowledge, erotic sensibility, artistic creation and otherness, ideas which would preoccupy him until the end of his life. Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent was written by the young Mircea Eliade - one of Romania's greatest writers and intellectuals. The book can be viewed as an early 20th century 'Catcher in the Rye', and allows us an intimate view of the developing genius, whose literary output has been neglected in the English language for too lon.