Survivals and Camouflages of Myths

As mentioned above (this volume, 57) in the editor’s introduction to Eliade’s “The Sacred in the Secular World,” it is characteristic of Eliade’s understanding that the sacred is not lost to the secular world, but is more profoundly concealed and more subtly revealed. In this selection on “Survivals and Camouflages of Myths,” Eliade explains his understanding of the “modern” (i.e. secular) retention of mythic themes and thus of a fundamentally religious orientation. This position has, of course, been much criticized. See, for example, Robert Segal’s opposition to this claim, “Are there Modern Myths?” in Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade , edited by Bryan Rennie, 25-32 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001 ). The following selection is taken from Myth and Reality by Mircea Eliade, 162-93 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). All rights reserved. Copyright © 1963 by Harper and Row. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.