A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1
Standing Upright, the Shape of the Cosmos, Birthing Science, Soma and More — Tackling Jordan Peterson’s Reading List
Something funny I noticed up front is that the book is subtitled From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries, but it doesn’t stop there. Each chapter is dedicated to one religion or religious subject in a somewhat chronological order. There is a lot of overlap in time of course because religious ideas were developing separated from each other geographically just like people developed in many other ways without direct connections.
Beyond the Eleusinian Mysteries it then goes on to include three more chapters and subjects: Zarathustra, Israel in the Period of the Kings, and Dionysus. This isn’t a complaint but just a curiosity and gives the reader some additional information about where to look for references to these subjects. And that is how I think I’ll continue to think of this book and likely the next two volumes: as great references.
This book wasn’t always super-compelling. Going through the summaries and some details of all of these religious ideas was at times tedious. This book wasn’t a page turner like some murder-mystery for sure.
In fact, this book was on my Christmas list, and my brother/sister in -law were kind enough to get it for me. When I opened it in front of them, my witty and funny sister in-law teased me by calling it a snooze fest. And she’s not wrong. This was much more like doing my homework to better understand the human condition than it was entertainment. I’ll for sure keep this book on my shelf as a reference tool if and when I need to go back and better understand any religious idea. Each chapter is a wealth of information in small nuggets about all the religions we hear about but may not truly understand.
A better understanding of humanity is definitely what I earned by reading this first volume. Here are a few ideas I came away with.
Standing Up Shaped Everything
Now, I know I just said this wasn’t a page-turner, but I did get my mind blown and see a bit of the matrix on page one. Eliade opens up with a discussion of how our physical orientation in the world is reflected in the basic framework for our religious ideas, simply because we stand up.
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