Spiritual Scholarship and the Study of Religion as Self-Improvement : The Search for a Personalized History of Religion at the Eranos Meetings

The two editors set out to investigate the working hypothesis according to which both the long talks delivered at the Eranos meetings – the rule was two-hour lectures followed by no questions-and-answers section, horribile dictu for today’s academic mores – and the resulting rich literature served as a source for «spiritual scholarship» throughout most of the twentieth century, under the influence of Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology and Rudolf Otto’s comparative phenomenology. The editors advanced a preliminary definition of «spiritual scholarship» as the tendency, mostly discernible with the scholars of religion who gathered at Ascona, of attributing psychological meanings to religious phenomena and of regarding the scholarly interpretation of myths, symbols, and religious images as means of self-improvement

Dan Dana, Zalmoxis de la Herodot la Mircea Eliade : Istorii despre un zeu al pretextului, Iaşi, Polirom, 2008

Iricinschi Eduard. Dan Dana, Zalmoxis de la Herodot la Mircea Eliade : Istorii despre un zeu al pretextului, Iaşi, Polirom, 2008. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°5, 2010. pp. 185-187

“Formative Exchanges” in Late Antique Eurasia (1): Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism, and Christianity

The article first presents the theoretical, historical, and methodological presuppositions that guided the organization of the first “Formative Exchanges in Late Antique Eurasia” workshop at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (KHK), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, in 2017. In the second part, the article summarizes the papers presented at this meeting and identifies the emerging questions and results shared by the participants

Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade : From Magic to Myth, New York – Bern – Berlin – Bruxelles – Frankfurt – Oxford – Wien, Peter Lang (After Spirituality : Studies in Mystical Traditions), 2014

Iricinschi Eduard. Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade : From Magic to Myth, New York – Bern – Berlin – Bruxelles – Frankfurt – Oxford – Wien, Peter Lang (After Spirituality : Studies in Mystical Traditions), 2014. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°10, 2015. pp. 212-215

How Gullible Were the Women of Late antique Rhone and Asia Minor ? Redescribing the Valentinian Marcosians in Irenaeus of Lyon’s Against the Heresies (I,13-15)

The article redescribes Irenaeus of Lyon’s depiction of Marcus the Magician and his followers (Against the Heresies I, 13-15) and, following the methodology elaborated by Jonathan Z. Smith and Burton L. Mack, it advances a rectification of the category of «heresiology » in the work of this second-century Christian writer. This application of the Smith/ Mack four-step theoretical recalibration of comparison entails, in a first stage, a description of the Marcosians according to the primary sources. It continues with a comparison with similar ancient religious elements, derived from the collection of Greek magical papyri, and from the religious history of Montanism. The paper proposes, in a third stage, a redescription of the ancient religious group of the Marcosians as a highly mobile religious group, active across the Mediterranean world, open to complete inclusion of women in ritual activities and prophecy, with an ambitious agenda of social mobility. Finally, the paper advances a categorial rectification : it considers the category of «heresiology » as being influenced by Irenaeus’s discourse of creating a «heresiological double » with the purpose of delegitimization and deauthorization, and it suggests regarding it as an aggregating term. In Irenaeus’s particular case, «heresiology » aggregates «magic » and «gender » as two constitutive terms in the depiction of the Marcosians.Cet article propose une «redescription » du tableau peint par Irénée de Lyon (Contre les hérésies I, 13-15) de Marc le Magicien et ses disciples. Adoptant les principes méthodologiques élaborés par Jonathan Z. Smith et Burton L. Mack, nous proposons ainsi une rectification de la catégorie d’ «hérésiologie » dans l’oeuvre de cet auteur chrétien du deuxième siècle. Ces principes de recalibrage théorique implique quatre étapes : 1) une description, ici des Marcosiens d’après les sources primaires ; 2) une comparaison avec des éléments religieux antiques similaires, ici tirés du corpus des papyrus magiques grecs et de l’histoire religieuse du montanisme ; 3) une redescription du groupe religieux antique des Marcosiens en tant que groupe religieux hautement mobile, actif à travers l’ensemble du monde méditerranéen, ouvert à une inclusion totale des femmes dans ses activités rituelles et prophétiques, et doté d’un ambitieux projet de mobilité sociale ; 4) enfin, une rectification catégorielle, en considérant comment la catégorie d’ «hérésiologie » , influencée par le discours d’Irénée et l’idée d’un «double hérésiologique » , dépourvu à la fois de légitimité et d’autorité, est en fait un un terme agrégeant. L’ «hérésiologie d’Irénée en particulier agrège la « magie » et le « genre » comme le deux termes constitutifs de sa description des marcosiens.Iricinschi Eduard. How Gullible Were the Women of Late antique Rhone and Asia Minor ? Redescribing the Valentinian Marcosians in Irenaeus of Lyon’s Against the Heresies (I,13-15). In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°15, 2020. pp. 115-132

Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade : From Magic to Myth, New York – Bern – Berlin – Bruxelles – Frankfurt – Oxford – Wien, Peter Lang (After Spirituality : Studies in Mystical Traditions), 2014

Iricinschi Eduard. Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade : From Magic to Myth, New York – Bern – Berlin – Bruxelles – Frankfurt – Oxford – Wien, Peter Lang (After Spirituality : Studies in Mystical Traditions), 2014. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°10, 2015. pp. 212-215

Jörg Ulrich, Anders-Christian Jacobsen & David Brakke (Eds.): Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation: Discursive Fights over Religious Traditions in Antiquity

This contribution offers a review of:Jörg Ulrich, Anders-Christian Jacobsen & David Brakke (Eds.): Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation: Discursive Fights over Religious Traditions in Antiquity.Berlin: Peter Lang. 2012. XVI + 322 pages, 1 table, ISBN 978-3-631-63538-4 (hardcover

Biographical Metamorphoses in the History of Religion - Moshe Idel and Three Aspects of Mircea Eliade

This paper includes an extended review of Moshe Idel’s Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth (New York: Peter Lang, 2014) through a triple analysis of Eliade’s early literary, epistolary, and academic texts. The paper examines Idel’s analysis of some important themes in Eliade’s research, such as his shift from understanding religion as magic to its interpretation as myth; the conception of the camouflage of sacred; the notions of androgyny and restoration; and also young Eliade’s theories of death.The paper also discusses Idel’s evaluation of Eliade’s programatic misunderstanding of Judaism and Kabbalah, and also of Eliade’s moral and professional abdication regarding the political and religious aspect of the Iron Guard, a Romanian nationalist extremist and anti-Semitic group he was affiliated with in 1930s

Ian Gardner, Jason BeDuhn & Paul Dilley: Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings. Studies on the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex

This contribution offers a review ofIan Gardner, Jason BeDuhn & Paul Dilley: Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings. Studies on the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, v. 87.Leiden: Brill, 2015. 320 + x pages, €110.00, ISBN: 978900423470