Eliade is under a gross illusion in supposing that modern 
man “finds it increasingly difficult to rediscover the existential 
dimensions of religious man in the archaic societies.” Modern 
man, since the electro-magnetic discoveries of more than a 
century ago, is investing himself with all the dimensions of 
archaic man plus.  The art and scholarship of the past century 
and more have become a monotonous crescendo of archaic 
primitivism. Eliade’s own work is an extreme popularization of 
such art and scholarship. But that is not to say that he is 
factually wrong. Certainly he is right in saying that “the wholly 
desacralized cosmos is a recent discovery in the history of the 
human spirit.” In fact, the discovery results from the phonetic 
alphabet and the acceptance of its consequences, especially 
since Gutenberg. But I question the quality of insight that 
causes a human voice to quaver and resonate with 
hebdomadal vehemence when citing the “history of the human