“The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto – Chapter 16
Chapter 16 of “The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto is named ‘The ‘Cruder’ Phases’. Here is our summary.
CHAPTER 16
The ‘Cruder’ Phases
Pages 136 to 139
Otto considers the primitive forms of religion. [Page 136]
(a) Religion originates with a numinous experience. It may have been bizarre, unintelligible, or even grotesque. Then the numinous gradually unfolds its full content. [Page 136]
(b) The earliest form of numinous emotion is abrupt, capricious, and desultory. Its indistinctness causes it to be merged and confounded with natural feelings. [Page 137]
(c) The moment of numinous consciousness gets attached to the natural world. That is the root of nature-worship and the deification of natural objects. [Page 137]
(d) The primitive forms of religion are uncontrolled and enthusiastic. They make for wild fanaticism. [Page 138]
(e) The primitive numinous experience undergoes wrong schematizations. [Page 138]
(f) The primitive numinous experience is gradually rationalized and moralized. [Page 138]
Even the first stirring of daemonic dread is a purely a priori element. It is like aesthetic judgement and the category of the beautiful. Or the experience of joy. [Page 138]
As the numen reveals itself, the crude stage is transcended. Essential to that is charging the numinous with rational elements, even though the non-rational is retained. [Page 139]
THE IDEA OF THE HOLY
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
RESOURCES: Outline, Terminology, Professor Rudolf Otto
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