The myth of Eternal Return

Honored learned folks,

I have been reading a small book by Mircea Eliade, "The Myth of the Eternal Return". For once, it's a relatively easy read necessating only infrequent use of my dictionary (words such as "hierogamy", "ontology" etc.)

The whole point of the book is to highlight that all primitive societies (pre-history and dawn of history) all yearned to go back to an "ideal time" while doing their best to ignore and refute "real time". Said "ideal time" was when their Gods and Heroes were shaping the cosmos. In fact, there was no concept of a linear time back then : what had been done before should be done again, and again.

EVERYTHING they did was inspired by the need, the will to go back to that time. They only REPEATED what their Great Forebears had done before, on and on and on. As for religious ceremonies, such as New Year celebration, they didn't
"re-enact" myths, they did go back to the moment when they were actually made.

This whole idea of negating "real time" is very interesting and has many parallels to our beloved gloranthan societies, except it's one big step further.
"Heroquesting" to "Ideal Time" was not a matter of great ceremonies, but also of
everyday ritual, even in the way they ate, married and fought.

All said, I do recommend this book !