The Idea of the Holy

The trouble with guys like German theologian Rudolf Otto and "Beat Friar" William Everson is that they've been indoctrinated with the tenets of the Semitic (Judeo-Christian-Muslim) religious mythos. These tenets and foundational concepts include transcendence, a gendered deity, unworthiness and the need for atonement, etc. Hence, all their contentions take these ideas as given. This skews their arguments and renders them rather irrelevant to those whose views differ from the Western parochial mainstream.First of all, is a sense of the numinous, which Otto claims is the basis of all religion, a human universal? Freud claimed that he had no inkling of any such mood, emotion, instinct or intuition. Otto acknowledges that such people exist, for on page 8 he requests that those who have no such presentiment of the numinous, not read his book! (I wonder if Freud read "The Idea of the Holy.") I'll assume that, while some may lack completely any consciousness of the numinous and some mystics devote their entire lives to its evocation, most people catch glimpses of the numinous at various points in their lives, and have some idea of the subjective experience Otto is referring to.So what is the object of this numinous instinct? What, exactly is the "numen" to which this feeling yearns or pertains? To Otto, the answer would be: God. The transcendent father God of the Bible, no less. To a Pantheist like poet Robinson Jeffers the object would be quite different, something imminent or inherent to nature. To the Taoist it would be the ineffable Tao, to a Buddhist the Void, etc. But how do we know that the numinous instinct has an object? How do we know that it isn't a subjective psychological experience that evolved in response to some selective exigency in the natural environment? In other words, why should we not assume that it isn't an adaptation? How do we know that mystics aren't simply adept at self-stimulation of the nucleus accumbens or some other neural locus?My own sense of the numinous was never felt in church. In fact, it was never felt indoors, unless I was looking out a window. It's always felt outdoors in nature and is closely associated with images of sublimity, loneliness, distance, peace, even death. I feel it most strongly in November. There are things I can do to evoke it but I prefer to let it come unbidden. I don't particularly feel that the numen is "wholly other." In fact, I tend to feel a oneness with it. Nor do I experience the "creature-consciousness" of powerlessness or inadequacy before the "mysterium tremendum." I don't particularly feel abashed or tremble with awe or religious dread, but feel a certain sad joy, rather. I think that those timorous, tremulous feelings, which Otto lists as aspects or attributes of the numinous emotion, are artifacts of Otto's Semitic religious orientation. He would relate these feelings with the "conviction of sin" that convinces one of the need for redemption. Otto would have it that it's the sinners, in response to this conviction of unworthiness, who demand redemption, not God who requires it. Hence, Jesus died to satisfy or assuage felt human guilt, not because God demands blood for the remission of sin, as Paul proclaims in the Book of Hebrews. Weird.I feel that it's important to read books like "The Idea of the Holy" if for no other reason than to sample how theologians think. I think it's also interesting to explore ideas about what the numinous emotion portends, how it's engendered, what it means, etc. There's actually a lot to Otto's disquisition I agree with. I just wish it'd been written by someone more objective and not by someone who regards Christianity as the highest human development of the religious instinct. The topic cries out for in depth consideration by a Pagan or Pantheist, or by evolutionary psychologists or neurologists. Maybe such treatments have been done. "So many books, so little time..."

This book, first published in 1917, is rightly regarded as a classic of religious philosophy.Otto's great contribution to Christianity was to assert the importance of a non-rational approach to the divine. Christianity, which is the most dogmatic and moralistic of the major world religions, needed the corrective. Otto created the word "numinous" to stand for the sense of a divine presence that operates beyond rational understanding. He also coined the term "mysterium tremendum" to connote the inchoate sense of awe and dread that humans feel in the presence of the divine. To him, both of these ideas were essential to a full expression of the religious spirit.One reaction to this book over the years goes something like this: either you've been knocked off your horse like St Paul, in which case you already have a direct experience of the numinous, or you haven't. Why bother to analyze something that by its very nature can't be put into words? Here Otto makes a subtle but crucial distinction. He's not talking about a numinous feeling, but about a feeling of the numinous. In other words, the numinous exists out there, not inside us, so we can approach it as an object to be observed and, at least by analogy to the sensations it excites with us, described.Otto didn't reject the rational, though. Without rationality, he says, we can't have belief, only feelings. In his view of religion, the rational and non-rational interpenetrate each other like the warp and woof of a fabric, which can't be separated without destroying the very garment it makes. He points out several times that fully understanding the non-rational conception of god deepens our rational religious ideas.Otto was a Christian, and believed deeply in the superiority of Christianity as the highest synthesis of the rational and moral with a primal sense of awe. (Buddhists might differ.) Fortunately for his reputation as a religious philosopher he was much more than a Christian apologist: he was a close observer of human behavior and of religious practices around the world. If Otto had been born seventy five years later, he might have been Joseph Campbell. He traveled widely, and had a deep knowledge and appreciation of Asian, Arabic and Greek religious thought. He anticipated Campbell by demonstrating that a sense of spiritual awe and mystery is universal to all religions.In his observations of how mankind divines the presence of the holy, Otto realized the importance of predispositions - a person must be both receptive to divine presence and capable of recognizing when it appears. In this he anticipates neural Darwinism, which also talks about our predisposition toward certain aspects of reality. For instance, we have evolved an ability to recognize sound patterns. This isn't music, but it allows us to hear a song and store it as such in our brain. Similarly, we are capable of conceiving of an overarching force that exists beyond our selves, and are capable of recognizing manifestations of it. This isn't religion, but it's the precursor to any truly religious feeling.This book strikes sparks in almost every chapter, even the ones settling obscure doctrinal scores. It deserves the high regard in which it's held because Rudolf Otto is a remarkably good guide to the ineffable.

Rudolf Otto's thesis is thought provoking, and will be consonant with the experience of many spiritually sensitive people. His central concept is the "numen"--a classical Latin word which refers to the Divine, insofar its presence can be sensed by those who are sufficiently sensitive. Even ordinary people can sense it, in certain situations, certain places, certain moments. Otto--a Protestant--argues that established religion can get too caught up in ritual, or in religious teachings. As a result, the religion loses touch with where its roots really ought to be, in actual, living, spiritual experience. Otto writes mostly from the Protestant Christian point of view, though occasionally he does make reference to eastern spiritual traditions--Indian, and Chinese, principally. Not a book to read quickly, but intriguing.

Well the best summary comes from the full title."An Inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational"and it certainly delivers on this.The idea of the "Numinous" sums it p perfectly but will let you read the book for a full description.If you feel that there is something in your head and/or your heart which is the "non-rational" factor and you think that you need help in defining what this may both be and mean then this is the book for you.A splendid read you will be able to return to again and again

Bought the ebook and didn't realise that this was just a reprint of a (very badly) machine scanned edition freely available for no charge on Internet Archive. Going to return my copy for a refund.

I am so pleased the book has been reprinted. It was recommended to us as students by a very Godly man Rev. Sydney Martin of the Church of the Nazarene. The book was in perfect condition when it arrived . A very good service from Galaxy books.Thank you .Rev. David A. Hands M.B.E.

Item very flimsy.