¹ Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy (Second English Edition – Oxford University Press (Galaxy Books, 1958)), p. 135.Google Scholar

² Ibid., pp. 4, 7, 10, 13, 30, 59, 63, 184–185.

³ Ibid., pp. 12, 34, 35, 77, 107–108, 184.

⁴ Katz, S. T., ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (London, 1978), ed. Katz, S. T..Google Scholar

⁵ Buren, P. van, The Edges of Language (London, 1972).Google Scholar

⁶ Bambrough, R., ‘Intuition and the Inexpressible’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. Katz.Google Scholar

⁷ What Otto means by the law of the association of analogous feelings is that analogous feelings may excite or stimulate one another. If a non-religious feeling sufficiently resembles a numinous experience, it may arouse it in the mind. The law of reproduction of similar feelings is such that there is an imperceptibly gradual substitution of the non-religious feeling by its like, the numinous or religious feeling, the former dying away as the latter intensifies in corresponding degree.

⁸ R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, chapters IV, V, VI.

⁹ By the evocative character of religious language in The Idea of the Holy I mean that the process of speaking of analogies for numinous experience can arouse concrete numinous feelings through what Otto calls the law of association of analogous feelings. (See note 7 above). This is one of the most important functions of Otto's analogical language about numinous experience in The Idea of the Holy. For further extensive discussion of this claim, see my unpublished Ph.D thesis, Rudolf Otto's Theory of Religious Experience in The Idea of the Holy: A Study in the Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

¹⁰ See Schleiermacher's On Religion, Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (New York, 1958), trans. J. Oman.Google Scholar

¹¹ R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p. 135. Incidentally, the original terms translated as ‘to know’ and ‘to understand conceptually’ are ‘kennen’ and ‘begriffliches verstehen’. See Das Heilige (Munchen, 1963), p. 163.Google Scholar

¹² James, W., Principles of Psychology vol. 1 (New York, 1950).Google Scholar

¹³ Bergson, H., The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, (New York, 1963) trans. Andra, R. A. & Brereton, C..Google Scholar

¹⁴ Buber, M., I and Thou (Edinburgh, 1937), trans. Smith, K. G..Google Scholar

¹⁵ The influence of Fries on Otto is most obvious in Otto's earlier work of 1909 devoted to the philosophy of Fries and his disciple Theodore Wette, De, The Philosophy of Religion (London, 1931) trans. Dicker, E. B.Google Scholar. However it is still apparent in The Idea of the Holy (1917) and even in later works such as Mysticism, East and West (1926) trans. B. L. Bracey & R. C. Payne (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Which Otto in Mysticism, East and West (Appendix III) explicitly identifies with Ahndung. For further discussion of extravertive mysticism (what Otto called in the above mentioned study ‘the mysticism of unifying vision’), see in particular Stace, W. T., Mysticism and Philosophy (London, 1960)Google Scholar and Wainwright, W. J., Mysticism (Brighton, 1981).Google Scholar

¹⁷ For further information about Ahndung and Wissen (as well as other aspects of his complex epistemology which I cannot discuss here) see, apart from Otto's own The Philosophy of Religion, Davidson, R. F., Rudolf Otto's Interpretation of Religion (Princeton, New Jersey, 1947)Google Scholar and Almond, P. C.Rudolf Otto, An Introduction to His Philosophical Theology (Chapel Hill & London, 1984)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. Katz (London, 1978)Google Scholar. Katz has elaborated on many of the themes of this article in a later essay, ‘The Conservative Character of Mystical Experience’, Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed. S. T. Katz (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Stace, W. T., Mysticism and Philosophy (London, 1960)Google Scholar.

²⁰ See, for example, Gimello, R. M., ‘Mysticism and Meditation’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Katz, S. T.Google Scholar; Gimello, R. M. ‘Mysticism in its Contexts’, Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed. S. T. KatzGoogle Scholar; Keller, C. A., ‘Mystical Literature’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. KatzGoogle Scholar; Moore, P. G., ‘Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. KatzGoogle Scholar; Penner, H., ‘The Mystical Illusion’, Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed. S. T. KatzGoogle Scholar; Proudfoot, W., Religious Experience (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Gill, J., ‘Mysticism and Mediation’, Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Donovan, P., Interpreting Religious Experience (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Overall, C., ‘The Nature of Mystical Experience’ Religious Studies, vol. 18 (1982), pp. 47–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Garside, B., ‘Language and the Interpretation of Mystical Experience’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3 (1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hick, J., ‘Mystical Experience as Cognition’, Mystics and Scholars (Calgary, 1977)Google Scholar, ed. H. G. Coward and T. Penelhum for earlier accounts of an epistemological approach to mysticism similar to the one advocated by Katz.

²¹ See, for example, Wainwright, W. J., Mysticism (Brighton, 1981)Google Scholar; King, S. B., ‘Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LV1/2 (Summer 1988)Google Scholar; Forman, R. K. C., ‘Mysticism, Constructivism and Forgetting’, The Problem of Pure Consciousness (New York, 1990), ed. Forman, R. K. C.Google Scholar; Rothberg, D., ‘Contemporary Epistemology and the Study of Mysticism’, The Problem of Pure Consciousness, ed. R. K. C. FormanGoogle Scholar; Perovich, A., ‘Mysticism and the Philosophy of Science’, Journal of Religion 65 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horne, J. R., ‘Pure Mysticism and Twofold Typologies, The Typology of Mysticism – James to Katz’, The Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, vol. III, No. 1 (Spring 1982).Google Scholar

²² Katz, S. T., ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. Katz, p. 26.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., p. 26.

²⁴ R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p. 113.

²⁵ Katz, S. T. ‘Language Epistemology and Mysticism’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. S. T. Katz, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 58–59.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 57.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 59.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 62.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 46–47.

³¹ Ibid., p. 47.

³² Ibid., pp. 54–55.

³³ Ibid., p. 48.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 40

³⁵ P. van Buren, The Edges of Language, pp. 66–67 & 104.

³⁶ Ibid., pp. 62–63.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 83–85 & 110–113.

³⁸ Ibid., p. 56.

³⁹ Ibid., pp. 81–82.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 82–83.

⁴¹ Bambrough, R., ‘Intuition and the Inexpressible’, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis ed. S. T. Katz.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., p. 206.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 208.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 212.

⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 210–211.

⁴⁶ Kellenberger, J., ‘The Ineffabilities of Mysticism’, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 4 (October, 1979), p. 312.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See, for example, Forman, R. K. C., ‘Mysticism, Constructivism and Forgetting’, The Problem of Pure Consciousness, ed. R. K. C. Forman, pp. 30–43.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See, for example, Sprung, M., ‘Non-cognitive Language in Madhyamika Buddhism’, Language in Indian Philosophy and Religion (Waterloo, Ontario, 1978), ed. Coward, H. G., pp. 43–54Google Scholar

⁴⁹ We shall return to this issue when considering Katz's discussion of mystical language.

⁵⁰ See p. 191, as well as ‘The “Wholly Other” in Religious History and Theology’, Religious Essays, A Supplement to ‘The Idea of the Holy’ (London, 1931), trans. B. Lunn, pp. 78–94.Google Scholar

⁵¹ P. van Buren, The Edges of Language, pp. 65–66.

⁵² R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p. 26.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 28.

⁵⁴ Although even here some qualification is necessary, since, contrary to Bambrough, these statements about the mysterium moment of numinous experience are not unqualified ineffability claims. This is because in spite of their undeniably predominantly negative tone, Otto still speaks positively of the mysterium as ‘unusual’, ‘filling the mind with blank wonder and astonishment’ and as causing us to ‘recoil in a wonder which strikes us chill and numb’. Clearly, although very little is said about the nature of the mysterium moment of numinous experience, Otto's statements about it are not unintelligible.

⁵⁵ W. J. Wainwright, Mysticism; King, S. B., ‘Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LV1/2 (Summer 1988)Google Scholar; Forman, R. K. C., ‘Mysticism, Constructivism and Forgetting’, The Problem of Pure Consciousness, ed. R. K. C. Forman.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LV1/4 (Winter 1988).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ For further consideration of this issue, see note 54.

⁵⁸ Otto defines ‘ideograms’ as symbolic statements, which refer to a ‘unique content of (religious) feeling… to understand which, a man must already have had the experience himself’, The Idea of the Holy (p. 60); and he observes, for example, (p. 107) that ‘wrath’, ‘fire’ and ‘fury’ are excellent ‘ideograms’ for the non-rational element of awfulness in numinous experience, the tremendum.

⁵⁹ I am much indebted in the following account to Sallie TeSelle's provocative work on the use of metaphor in theological discourse, which can be found in her Speaking in Parables (London, 1975).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ For example, the idea of anger can only be properly understood as an analogy for the tremendum moment of numinous experience once one has had some direct acquaintance with such experience.

⁶¹ That numinous experiences are not always interpreted religiously has been frequently suggested. See, for example, Gaskin, J. C. A., The Quest for Eternity (Harmondsworth, 1982)Google Scholar; Hepburn, R., Christianity and Paradox (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Hay, D., Exploring Inner Space (Harmondsworth, 1982).Google Scholar