The Idea of the Holy

by Sylvie Shaw

Rudolf Otto, back in the 1920s, wrote a beautiful book called The Idea of the Holy. In it he talked about the experience of the holy or sacred, describing it as a relationship with the numinous, the unexplainable, the unknowable mysterious 'other', that is fascinating and enticing but also fearsome and fearful at the same time.


The expressions he used come from the Latin. The numinous and mysterious, he said, are both fascinans (fascinating) and tremendum (terrifying). They relate to the 'ineffable core of religion' (Durham 2011), that is the mysterium or the wholly other, that is beyond,  the more than and eternal; it eludes understanding.

Otto (1936: 13) states the mysterium tremendum 'may burst in a sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy...It has its wild and demonic forms... [or] ... it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious.' Among the dimensions of this 'extraordinary' and 'unfamiliar' feeling are: Awe or 'religious dread' (14), where the mysterious 'touches the feelings' (15) and the individual trembles in its sight. From there emerges a sense of 'Overpoweringness', an experience of the majesty and power of the holy other, where the self is encompassed within the transcendent and oneness with God (20). The third element of the tremendum is an 'urgency' enacted as vitality, passion, force and excitement and felt two fold - within the wrath of God or the blazing fire of God's love (23).

Wonder and bliss are the participants'  reward. These sensations or religious experiences are felt in wilderness places, spiritual places, places of splendour and grace, where rituals guide participants towards the transcendental (beyond) and the internal (within or self-transcendence). Felt experiences - internal and external - are constantly in movement revealed as two intertwining and unravelling cords. These encounters with the numinous are edgy, captivating, enticing, but there's a sense of danger or the unexpected too. At such times, the virtues of graciousness and gratitude, beauty and aesthetics are apparent, says Otto, in the experience of solemn 'private devotion' (36) and in 'bliss or beatitude' (32).

In the outdoors, in a beautiful space - at sea, deep in a lush forest or high on a mountain top or in a religious building of grandeur - in places where the veil between worlds is thin, or where the portal to other realms is open, perhaps these places of such aesthetic sacredness, participants may be overawed, or overwhelmed by the combination of atmosphere, surroundings, and sensually-alluring beauty of place and space. Here participants can be overpowered through (or wedded within) their experience of the transcendent, where the self is subsumed, and the individual is enlivened by a connection with the mysterious, fearsome and attractive other. In these spaces of insight and wonder, participants may celebrate their deeply flowing interconnection with the holy or sacred other.

Questions:
Why are such experiences so captivating? Have you ever had that experience of oneness with all things? A kind of peak or sacred experience which could be felt in the outdoors, in a religious establishment, or in aspects of your life in connection with the transcendent? What as it about your experience that shifted your awareness or deepened your feelings of spirit or change?

References:
Durham J.C. Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy 1: Summary,
http://www.bytrentsacred.co.uk/index.php/rudolf-otto/the-idea-of-the-holy-1-summary
Otto R. 1936. The idea of the Holy: an inquiry into the non rational factor in the idea of the Divine. London: Oxford University Press, http://www.archive.org/stream/theideaoftheholy00ottouoft#page/12/mode/2up
Image source:
http://pixabay.com/en/nepal-himalayas-bird-wilderness-412/