Rudolf Otto

Rudolf Otto was a German Lutheran theologian and scholar of comparative religion who taught at Göttingen, Breslau and Marburg. In The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige) he argued that the core of religion is a non-rational experience of the numinous, an encounter with something wholly other that is at once overwhelming and fascinating. The book made religious experience a category in its own right and shaped the comparative study of religion and mysticism.

Key ideas

• The numinous is a sui generis category, not reducible to moral or rational ideas.
• It is experienced as mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a mystery that both overwhelms and attracts.
• The holy is "wholly other", beyond ordinary concepts.
• Mystical traditions East and West can be compared for structural similarities without being identified.

Major works

• The Philosophy of Religion Based on Kant and Fries (1909)
• The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige, 1917)
• Mysticism East and West (West-östliche Mystik, 1926)

In the conversation

• Question Does a Carmelite’s prayer of union and a Zen kenshō report the same experience? Aiko Tanabe · 6 replies
• Question Arjuna sees the universal form and begs it to stop. Is that the sublime, or something else? Rohan Desai · 4 replies