20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

528 Daniela Dumbravaa religious phenomenon. Indeed, Goethe’s interest to trace all vegetationforms back to the ‘original plant’ (to identify their Urpflanze) is interestingfor Eliade and he creates this analogy between morphology and themeaning of a sacred phenomenon and his historical interpretation. Smithundertakes a laborious and brilliant epistemological approach mostlyconcentrated on the background of Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plantsand Goethe's critique of Linaeus' static taxonomy, and, consequentlyon Eliade’s morphology of religious phenomena. However, I believethat the morphology of vegetation forms as ‘dynamic plant taxonomy’ andthe morphology of religious phenomena are not conceptually equivalentor analogue. Eliade operated with all the historical manifestations ofreligious phenomena in order to assess their ‘metabolism’ and, by doingthis, to show the veracity of the myth and the ways to recover its essentialelements, to ‘resurrect’ what apparently was lost. Ironically perhaps, wecould say that, Eliade seems to be a ‘shaman’ for the history of religions;and this regenerative process represents the core epistemological approachof Eliade’s work. Goethe’s Urpflanze represents only the ‘originalplant’ but doesn’t by itself have the power to be regenerated into an infinitelydeveloping form. Beyond his Urphänomen (original phenomenon) one findsonly polarities, dualities. I quote Constantin Noica: “It is almost as if,everywhere, the "archetypal phenomenon" coexisted with the fundamentalpolarity, that between darkness and light. Thus coexisting with polarities, oreven with a fundamental polarity, the archetypal phenomenon too proposesa principle of unification for the plurality of the world”. 25 It seems to be avery platonic Idea and true or not, it has nothing to do with the divinatoryand magic function of shamanism or with Eliade’s contribution onshamanic sacerdotal function. I consider that this new approach is a verygood opportunity to continue my analysis on Eliade’s morphology ofreligious phenomena. The debate has only just started.25Constantin Noica 2000: 124.