The Mystery of Totality in Mircea Eliade`s A Spiritual Adventure

Abstract

four-act play A Spiritual mentioned several times by Mircea Eliade in his autobiographical texts, has recently been offered to all those fascinated by mysterious imaginary world of literature written by Romanian scholar. Professor Mac Linscott Ricketts, devoted to introducing readers around world to Eliade's work, has managed to discover text of this play, written in 1946, in Eliade Special Collection of University of Chicago Library. A Spiritual Adventure was published for first time in January 2012, in English translation, in journal Theory in Action. Professor Ricketts also discusses making of this mythical text. For interpretative endeavour that we propose to undertake in following lines, Ricketts' paper, The Writing of A Spiritual Adventure, is an important starting point.Initially entitled Euridice, this play extends scheme of Hellenic myth, as it is structured by idea of experiencing via unitiva, beyond human will, through divine grace. Folded around mystery of being, story reveals ''the absolute reality of which teaches a human being ''techniques of partcipating in Divine Nature. As Eliade explains in his Soliloquies, ''noncontradiction is acceptable only in one kind of madness: love. Love is beyond fragmentation and contrast because it is autonomous, absolute, sui-generis revelation2.In realm of potentiality, first steps are taken through mirror of a magic space in Danube Delta. Here we witness dialogue conducted between Tudor Manciu, a young playwright who is afraid of spiritual sterility, and Alexiu, his down-to-earth friend. Thus we leam about Tudor's fascination with a genius composer, Mihai Barbura, who decided to withdraw from world and understand otherness in seclusion of Delta. mystery of famous musician is revealed due to Ctefania's presence, to whom artist confesses about his decision to wait for his dead wife's return from other world. This is beginning of a fascinating inner dialogue that gradually extends towards others, showing infinite possibilities of human consciousness as a bridge between heaven and earth. After engagement and marriage to Ctefania, Mihai Barbura's identity reveals contradictory complementarity between mythos and world of fragmentation. Barbura renounces his fame, which places his existence under sign of an external myth, in order to be only Petru Baranda, an ordinary man who wishes to fulfill marriage in heaven and on earth as well. Ctefania does not recognize her husband in simple man who apparently does not know anything about miracle of creation. She loses herself in despair and sin only to remodel her spiritual structure in harmony with rhythms of a cosmos that reveals its splendour. In final act of play, game of potentialities unfolds on a theatre stage. Tudor Manciu critically examines dress-rehearsal of A Spiritual whose message touches actor's hearts within limits of their level of perception. young playwright meets Ctefania again, as if by magic, to receive another invitation to noncontradiction, to madness of love, only one that offers certainty of immortality.Mircea Eliade's play seems to suggest that spiritual adventure of man requires existence of multiple levels of reality, harmonized in that structure of human consciousness through which Eliade defined sacred. Consequently, deciphering meanings of this mythical story entails relating to initiatory experience of search for centre, as it is reflected by religious traditions of mankind, so mysteriously enshrouded in Eliadean writings which are seen, inspired, and which seem to stem from high realms of soul. Professor Ricketts selects from journal excerpts that illustrate state of grace which overwhelmed writer when the mental film of a literary work attempted to make its way into his consciousness so that it could then be transferred, through work of art, into collective memory:For some time now, before falling asleep, I've been tempted again by obsession of a play I first saw one evening in December 1944, walking along deserted terraces of Estoril, when I was staying with Costes. …