· C.-H. Rocquet · You spoke of temptations. […] In what sense do you mean that you were “tempted” during your anamnesis as a historian of religions?
· M. Eliade · When you grasp the coherence, and even the nobility, the beauty, of the mythology and, let us say, the theology that provides the basis of cannibalism – when you have grasped that it is not a piece of animal behavior you are dealing with but a human act, that it is man, man as a being free to take a decision in the world, who has decided to kill and eat his fellow man – well, unconsciously the mind is tempted by the enormous freedom it has uncovered: so one can kill, be a cannibal, without losing “human dignity”. The same is true when you study the orgiastic rituals and grasp their amazing coherence: the orgy begins, and all the rules are swept away; incest and aggression are licit, and all the values have been stood on their head, And the meaning of that ritual is that it regenerates the world. […] And the meaning of that for me, a Westerner, a modern man, is that I too can always begin my life again and thereby ensure a continued creativity. That is the sense in which one can talk about temptations.
There are also more Lucifer-like dangers, however. When you understand that a man believes he can change the world as a result of meditation and specific rituals, and when you try to find out why he is so certain that, after performing that ritual, he really will become master of the world or at least of his village – well, there again it is the temptation if absolute liberty; in other words, the suppression of the human condition. Man is a limited, conditioned being. But the freedom of a god, or a mythic ancestor, or a spirit no longer trammeled by a mortal body! Those are temptations certainly. But I don’t want to give the impression that a historian of religions is actually tempted to become a cannibal, or to take part in orgies, or commit incest!
· C.-H. Rocquet · You have mentioned both cannibalism and incest. But you have concentrated particularly on cannibalism. Is that because you see it as the tragic key to the human condition?
· M. Eliade · Incest, the temporary abolition of all laws, is a phenomenon one meets in many cultures that have no notion of cannibalism. Cannibalism, and the decision to ensure fertility or even the continued existence of the world by human sacrifice, can be regarded as an extreme situation, in my opinion.
– Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet (1984), pp. 122-3
Ср. съ поршневской теоріей происхожденія человѣка и съ біоновскимъ противопоставленіемъ зависти и креативности (vs. кляйнианское противопоставленіе зависти и благодарности).