The last three-volume work of the Romanian philosopher and writer Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) sums up the results of his entire life in science. Volume III, following this theme, also includes additional chapters on the religions of ancient Eurasia, Tibet, magic, alchemy and the Hermetic tradition. In the third volume'Stories of Faith? Eliade specifically noted (in chastity, and on the Romanian material native to him) how the folklore tradition of Europe is close to the primitive origins (perhaps even somewhat exaggerated? antiquity of the latter). Moreover, Occam's scholasticism (? 297) shows similarities with primitive ideas about the universal manifestation of the divine in various (including 'tothemic?') forms. But the pony of the other comes mainly when a certain cultural and historical distance arises between the "hours" of mankind. And the pathos of the third volume' is precisely in the history of religious ideas. Already stated in the title, the chronological boundaries of the volume 'from Mahomet to the Reformation?' indicate the most important milestones in the history of mankind. The emergence of Islam's last (in the chronological sense) world religion' predetermined confessional processes in world history. The European Reformation marked the end of religion as a universal modeling system. Max Weber spoke of the paradoxes of birth from Protestant ethics' the spirit of capitalism' that led to the secularization' of life' and' the dissociation of the world? (Weber M. Selected works. M. , 1990. C. 61 and sl. ). Historical experience of the interaction of religious ideas is now as necessary to mankind as it was necessary in the era of the hundredth anniversary of world religions. Other books on the subject:M. Eliade, A History of Faith and Religious Ideas . Volume 1 M. Eliade, A History of Faith and Religious Ideas, Volume 2