OTTO attributes an interesting duality to the numinous and this represents a “harmony of contrasts”. The two aspects which comprise this complementarity are labelled “the daunting” and “the fascinating,” something he regards as the most important phenomenon in the history of world religion.

Another term used to describe these components is the “daemonic-divine,” signifying the fact that whilst one bows before the numinous as it appears in a cloak of horror and dread it also has a fascinating allure that charms all those who encounter it. Indeed, the

creature, who trembles before it, utterly cowed and cast down, has always at the same time the impulse to turn to it, nay even to make it somehow his own. The ‘mystery’ is for him not merely something to be wondered at but something that entrances him; and beside that in it which bewilders and confounds, he feels a something that captivates and transports him with a strange ravishment, rising often enough to the pitch of dizzy intoxication; it is the Dionysiac-element in the numen. (p.31)

The non-rational is thus made up of a dialectical process which, despite my Hegelian conceptualisation of it, seems to dissolve in a great synthesis of reciprocity. What appears in mysticism as happiness or bliss, therefore, is dramatically offset by the same paradox that was implied by the “Wrath of God”.

Otto speculates that perhaps this duality was originally uni-polar in nature and began life as a single point of reference, i.e. that of “daemonic dread,” only developing the second characteristic of positive self-surrender at a later date. For Otto, perhaps, the sole dimension to what must have seemed like an incomplete relationship would presumably have involved a form of animistic mediation in which the objective was to appease the incalculable “wrath” of one’s chosen deity:

It can never explain how it is that ‘the numinous’ is the object of search and desire and yearning, and that too for its own sake and not only for the sake of the aid and backing that men expect from it in the natural sphere. It can never explain how this takes place, not only in the forms of ‘rational’ religious worship, but in those queer ‘sacramental’ observances and rituals and procedures of communion in which the human being seeks to get the numen into his possession. (p.32)

“Primitive man,” to use Otto’s terminology, does not appear to have progressed past the stage of attempting to curry favour with the unpredictable temperament at the centre of one’s spiritual affections, but he also suggests that the roots of mysticism include forms of behaviour that indicate how worshippers gradually attempted to create an identification between the deity and themselves.

These aspects of spiritual deportment fall into two categories: the magical and the shamanistic. The first of these, magic, involves the use of ritualism, initiation and hierarchy, all of which are designed to act as a pathway towards godhood. The second form of behaviour, shamanism, employs ecstatic methods to “possess” the spirit for oneself and thus to become one with the object of one’s rapturous devotion. This led to possession becoming an act of self-affirmation that was sought beyond all else:

In a word, the vita religiosa begins; and to remain in these strange and bizarre states of numinous possession becomes a good in itself, even a way of salvation, wholly different from the profane goods pursued by means of magic. Here, too, commences the process of development by which the experience is matured and purified, till finally it reaches its consummation in the sublimest and purest states of the ‘life within the Spirit’ and in the noblest mysticism. (p.33)

This might sound rather self-seeking, but once spirituality had developed its own passage of personal growth it evolved into that which Otto calls a “lived experience”. It was now possible for the mysterium to be perceived directly and became a way of life that brought happiness and fulfilment. Not through conceptualisation, but as a result of stripping away all negative connotations that rely on graphic imagery and embracing the naked religiosity that appeals to the emotions.

This absence of the diagrammatic may well betray the philosopher’s Lutheran roots, hinting at the austere Protestant tendency to denounce the lurid appeal of Catholic iconography. Otto would contend that one who lacks the inner spirit of salvation has no means of overcoming his limiting infatuation with the visual.

Otto detects a deep sense of “fascination” in both the longing for spiritual fulfilment and those instances in which there is profound solemnity, be it in private or collective worship. By “fascination,” he is intimating that the religious subject harbours an intense desire for consummation that drives him or her towards a reverent goal which, needless to say, is considered to be the ultimate good. This passionate yearning is sensed inherently, in the very depths of the soul, and

shows that above and beyond our rational being lies hidden the ultimate and highest part of our nature, which can find no satisfaction in the mere allaying of the needs of our sensuous, psychical, or intellectual impulses and cravings. The mystics called it the basis or ground of the soul. (p.36)

As with Otto’s discussion of the “wholly other,” whose presence accentuates the non-rational aspects of mystical experience and overcomes the limitations of everyday consciousness, “fascination” offers a pathway towards religious experience by overwhelming the subject to the point of unutterable bliss. The German compares the exaltation that grips the Christian heart to the opening of the “heavenly eye” that was experienced by the Buddha as he sat meditating beneath the bodhi tree and which led him to a state of Enlightenment. As he explains, in

all these the entirely non-rational and specific element in the beatific experience is immediately noticeable. The qualitative character of it varies widely in all these cases, and is again in them all very different from its parallels in Christianity; still in all it is very similar in intensity, and in all it is a ‘salvation’ and an absolute ‘fascination’, which in contrast to all that admits of ‘natural’ expression or comparison is deeply imbued with the ‘over-abounding’ (’exuberant’) nature of the numen. (p.38)

This paradoxical “daemonic-divine,” before which one’s obstinate self-consciousness dissipates prior to making its glorious ascent into revelatory beatitude, thus serves as a curious twin-headed entry-point into mystical fulfilment.