Contents

List of Figures and Tables x

Preface: Ghosts, Post-truth Despair, and Brandolini's Law xi

Acknowledgements xix

Note on Text xxi

1 An Incoherent Contradiction 1

A geological divide 1

Mapping the problematique 2

Maps, compasses and bricks 5

Sui generis crisis 8

The arms race of natural theology 9

2 The Deep History of Comparison 13

A rusty toolbox 13

Birth certificate(s): Ultimate origins 17

A preliminary note on imperialism, postmodernism and science 21

Rationality as cumulative by-product of comparison: From Jean Bodin

to Edward Burnett Tylor 23

Enter comparative mythology: Friedrich Max Müller 26

Triumph and dissolution of comparison: James George Frazer 28

Whodunnit? 31

Shape of things to come 33

3 The Darwinian Road Not Taken 37

‘The greatest historian of all time' 37

The threat of a scientific and comparative study of religion 39

What makes us human 41

The Origin of Species, 1859: Breaking the chain of being 42

The Descent of Man, 1871: Degrees, not kinds 44

The Rubicon: Max Müller versus Darwin 46

Ladders, progress and pithecophobia 48

Original sin 51

4 Goodbye Science 55

The theory of everything 55

A scientific theology? William Robertson Smith's ‘dual life' 57

Smith's heretical accommodationism, 1880s 59

The end of the Victorian science of religion 62

Birth certificate(s): HoR's proximate origins 64

Netherlands, 1860s: Tiele's (tentative) science of religion 66

Netherlands, 1870s: Chantepie's theological reaction 68

Netherlands, 1930s: van der Leeuw's re-confessionalization 71

Germany, 1890s: ‘Cultural circles', geography and reactionary politics 73

Austria and Switzerland, 1900s-1950s: Schmidt's apologetic history

of religion 75

Schmidt's legacy: The strategic rescue of Andrew Lang's High Gods

as an early home run for post-truth 79

Italy, 1910s—1950s: Pettazzoni's revolutionary rebuttal 82

Italy, 1920s-1930s: Pettazzoni's two-fold gamble 84

1950: The foundation of the IAHR and the defeat of science 88

5 Eliadology 93

Neither with you nor without you: Mircea Eliade 93

Eliade, 1920s-1980s: From Romanian post-truth to American New Age 96

The sacred from the Stone Age to the present and back again 100

Schmidt's ‘stupendous learning and industry' 103

An epistemic twilight: Pseudoscience and esotericism 105

Shamanism, 1200s-1800s: Heretics, noble savages, (super)heroes 109

Shamanism, 1937-1946: Eliadean superpowers 110

Shamanism, 1951-1970s: The Eliadean synthesis 112

Resolving ‘The problem of shamanism': An unwarranted answer to a

non-existent question 115

6 The Demolition of the Status Quo 117

Point of (k)no(w) return: The politics of the Eliadean HoR 117

Sexist biases and gender issues: Eliade's tunnel vision 120

Dismantling homo religiosus: Rita M. Gross 122

Dismantling the Eliadean research programme: Henry Pernet 124

Dismantling the primacy of shamanism: Mac Linscott Ricketts 126

Dismantling phenomenological morphology: Ioan P.

Dismantling classification: Jonathan Z.

Dismantling right-wing ideology: Bruce Lincoln 133

New generations, poststructuralism and Religious Studies 135

Be careful what you wish for: Postmodernism 138

From Deconstruction to New Realism 141

7 The Cognitive (R)evolution: The End? 145

Post-truth rules 145

What is science, anyway? 148

Forgotten forerunners: Baldwin's evolutionary epistemology 151

Forgotten forerunners: Harrison's evolutionary psychology 153

Forgotten forerunners: Macalister's invention of tradition 154

Disappearing without a trace 155

The Dark Ages: Psychoanalysis, behaviourism and cultural anthropology 156

Modern trail-blazers, 1950s-1990s: The slow Renaissance of science 160

Cognition, 2000s: Back to a natural history of religion 163

Cognition, 2010s: More than meets the eye 166

Learning from your mistakes: The usefulness of scientific ‘false views' 168

A short-lived success? The inevitable rise of ‘false facts' 170

Epilogue: The Night of Pseudoscience 175

Notes 179

Bibliography 191

Index 233

Figures and Tables

Figures

1 'I lie disciplinary landscape: major issues in the history of religions

visualized as a geological map 3

2 The study of religious worldviews between essentialism and the etic/

emic dilemma 15

3 Proximate origins of comparative religion 18

4 Diachronic and cumulative development of the following concepts:

natural religion; sacred history; homo religiosus 20

5 Biases supporting the concept of human exceptionalism 41

6 The march of progress vs. the bush of evolution 50

7 A simplified version of Victorian progressionism 51

8 Comparative science of religion: original features, influences, and

main themes 56

9 William Robertson Smith’s (sociological) history of religion: original

features, influences, and main themes 61

10 The road towards the establishment of modern HoR 65

11 Pettazzoni’s history of religions: original features, influences, and

main themes 85

12 Eliade’s (hermeneutical) history of religions: original features,

influences, and main themes 98

13 Eliade’s‘transconscious’system 102

14 Poststructuralism and postmodernism: a tentative chart 137

15 Cognition and evolution reshape the scientific study of religion(s):

fundamentals and academic developments 167

Tables

1 History of what, exactly? 2

2 Two sides of the same coin: a simplified comparison of Friedrich Max

Muller’s and William Robertson Smith’s method and theory 62

3 Falsification of the Eliadean Research Programme: Reaction from

within the Chicago School 136