Wednesday, November 21, 2007
...it must be true!
[to Del.icio.us]
Q (aka Stephen) quoted Mircea Eliade:
And all of it read on the Internet, so "it" must be true!
¶ 11:28 AM In the presence of the naked woman, one does not find in one's inmost being the same terrifying emotion that one feels before the revelation of the cosmic mystery. There is no rite, there is only a secular act, with all the familiar consequences ….He comments drolly:
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
Eliade never experienced fear in the presence of a naked woman?Something about this quote did not ring true, I followed Q's link to his source (the Quelle of Q?), and found a post Dangling Listicles dealing with magazine covers (never a strong field of my interest, I read from the "back" like any good Hebraist ;-) Their version of the quote looks even more "wrong", so I checked with Google books (nul return) and Amazon online reader (p.259). Bingo! The quote should read:
The ritual nudity of the yogini has an intrinsic mystical value: if, in the presence of a naked woman, one does not find in one's inmost being the same terrifying emotion that one feels before the revelation of the cosmic mystery, there is no rite, there is only a secular act, with all the familiar consequences…Much less entertaining, but more accurate I suspect...
And all of it read on the Internet, so "it" must be true!
[to Del.icio.us]
Good for you, checking up on the quote! And I note that the "familiar consequences" aren't pregnancy or such mundane things:
"there is only a secular act, with all the familiar consequences (strengthening of the karmic chain, etc.)."
By 
Stephen (aka Q), at
November 21, 2007 1:01 PM
Oops, you are right, truncating the quote there does give the wrong impression!
By Tim, at
November 21, 2007 1:24 PM
