Experiențe ale extazului

by Ioan Petru Culianu

"In «Experiente ale extazului», Ioan Petru Culianu abordeaza studiul ascensiunii extatice ca istoric al religiilor. El isi limiteaza investigatia la o arie culturala precisa si in acelasi timp considerabila – de la vracii greci, precursori ai lui Platon, pana la Evul Mediu crestin –, fiind insa familiarizat si cu alte forme de ascensiune celesta, atestate in samanisme din China, India sau Australia.“ (Mircea Eliade)

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Ioan Petru Culianu was a Romanian historian of religion, culture, and ideas, a philosopher and political essayist, and a short story writer. He served as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago from 1988 to his death, and had previously taught the history of Romanian culture at the University of Groningen.

An expert in gnosticism and Renaissance magic, he was encouraged and befriended by Mircea Eliade, though he gradually distanced himself from his mentor. Culianu published seminal work on the interrelation of the occult, Eros, magic, physics, and history.

Culianu was murdered in 1991. It has been much speculated his murder was in consequence of his critical view of Romanian national politics. Some factions of the Romanian political right openly celebrated his murder. The Romanian Securitate, which he once lambasted as a force "of epochal stupidity", has also been suspected of involvement and of using puppet fronts on the right as cover.

Reviews

[Federico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ioan Couliano is the author of Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, one of the books that has had the greatest impact on my life. A wonderfully researched, creative, fascinating, and inspiring book on Renaissance magical practices. Hard to believe he also wrote such a terrible book—one that falls short in every possible way by comparison.

It might be well researched, but the end result is a confusing, shallow, and at times incoherent study that points nowhere. And I do mean nowhere. The first chapters are the only readable ones, in which he doesn’t jump from subject to subject, age to age, theme to theme—never settling for more than a few paragraphs before suddenly assuming he’s provided a valuable conclusion to who knows which of the discussed topics.

Even then, in those first chapters, he makes a few claims that I find outdated and, if I’m being honest, by now downright silly (and the book isn’t that old). Then, when discussing the Mysteries, he is satisfied with a purely eschatological framework—the mainstream position, perhaps, but a narrow one that doesn’t truly explain anything.

From then on, we get to the change from katabasis to anabasis—a fascinating subject—and the demonization of the spheres. Nothing is truly said about any of these, in a handful of chapters that appear to be written following Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs' methods, before finishing with medieval apocalyptic writings that have nothing to do with the rest of the book.

Haven’t checked if it’s the usual case of a random set of academic papers bundled together, but simply awful.

A little note on the Hyperborean Island—he briefly mentions the idea of horizontal vs. vertical paradises (on this Earth, to the West, vs. in another realm), as a Western issue. In fact, it goes way beyond. Back. And to the East. We have the original Siberian shamanism on one end (vertical), and Southeast Asian on the other (horizontal)—and the curiosity is that both arrived by sea to Japan, the only place where they mingled into one shared worldview.

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Constituind urmarea unui volum în englezeşte ce-şi propunea să dea lovitura de graţie teoriilor ieşite din religionsgeschichtliche Schule (Anz, Bousset, Reitzenstein, Cumont etc.) şi privind ascensiunea celestă a sufletului în Spatantike (Antichitatea tîrzie), cartea de faţă reprezintă complementul pozitiv, constructiv, al criticilor noastre. Critici care, de altfel, după ce au făcut obiectul mai multor articole, nu vor mai fi reluate în contextul acesta - ceea ce impune ca ele să fie pe scurt prezentate în Introducere. Perimate în privinţa fenomenologiei şi originii misterelor din Antichitatea tîrzie, teoriile din religionsgeschichtliche Schule mai aveau un drept de monopol asupra povestirilor de ascensiuni celeste (Himmelsreise), care se înmulţesc şi dobîndesc o importanţă majoră în acest "ev de nelinişte" ce caracterizează avîntul religiei creştine . În formula lor definitivă, care este aceea a lui Wilhelm Bousser, teoriile în chestiune afirmă, în substanţă, că :
1) originea ascensiunii celeste este iraniană;
2) după acest tip originar de povestire, ascensiunea se desfăşoară prin trei ceruri;
3) mai tîrziu, sub influenţa cosmologiei babiloniene, o schemă cu şapte ceruri i se substituie celei dintîi;
4) o nouă influenţă iraniană se exercită asupra Himmelsreise în primele secole ale erei creştine, aducînd cu ea dualismul, care va fi acela al sistemelor gnostice.