Archaic Ontology

Hence we are justified in speaking of an archaic ontol-ogy, and it is only by taking this ontology into consider-ation that we can succeed in understanding… even the most extravagant be-havior on the part of the primitive world

Eliade explicitly coins and defines ‘archaic ontology’ as the belief-structure that makes primitive behavior intelligible: only participation in sacred, absolute reality constitutes genuine being, while the profane is ontologically void.

Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954thesis

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the ‘primi-tive,’ the archaic man, acknowledges no act which has not been previously posited and lived by someone else, some other being who was not a man. What he does has been done before.

Eliade articulates the behavioral logic of archaic ontology: all meaningful human action derives its reality from repetition of a sacred, non-human prototype established at the origin.

Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting

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A man told me that when he went fish shooting (with bow and arrow) he pretended to be Kivavia himself… He did not implore Kivavia’s favor and help; he identified himself with the mythical hero.

Eliade illustrates the ontological mechanics of archaic existence through ethnographic examples in which identification with mythical prototypes — not mere imitation — constitutes the act’s reality.

Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting

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alimentation had a ritual meaning in all archaic societies; what we call ‘vital values’ was rather the expression of an ontology in biological terms; for archaic man, life is an absolut

Eliade extends archaic ontology into biological and nutritional domains, arguing that even bodily sustenance was experienced as ontological participation rather than mere physiological process.

Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting

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the former feels him-self indissolubly connected with the Cosmos and the cosmic rhythms, whereas the latter insists that he is connected only with History.

Eliade frames the contrast between archaic and modern ontological orientations as the difference between cosmic participation and historical consciousness, establishing the anthropological stakes of the term.

Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting

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These challenges and the response which the analyst has had to develop out of his own experience lead inevitably to formulating an ontology of analysis… the time has come in psychotherapy for work-ing out the archetypal root of the discipline.

Hillman’s call for an ‘ontology of analysis’ grounded in archetypal roots resonates obliquely with the project of archaic ontology, suggesting depth psychology’s own need to recover a pre-modern ontological foundation.

Hillman, James, Suicide and the Soul, 1964aside

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