A website explaining Otto's main arguments and Siddhartha's journey to help the reader
determine why one may or may not want to have a "numinous" experience.
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orthodoxy
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numinous
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creature-feeling
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mysterium - A feeling of wonder towards a new experience/suddenly throw thyself towards this new intrigue
with careful curiosity and with inexplicable awe -
mysterium tremendum - 'daemonic dread' (16)
- Step 1. Experience "Shudder", "Fear"
- Step 2. Acknowledge thyself as equating to "near nothingness"
- Step 3. Submerge thyself to then experience "creature-feeling" and awe at the world around you
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mysterium fascinans
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Wholly Other
- Rational
- Irrational
- Non-Rational
A conventional assessment might be a short test identify the author of several quotes, and write a short paragraph.
Another option would be to write about one of the prompts below.
Pick one from the list below. Write one page -- as a letter, if that helps. Use one quote from Otto.
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Have you ever had what Otto would call a "numinous experience"? Describe the experience, and then how 1-2 of Otto's ideas seem to fit the experience -- or not. Remember that the numinous experience is the equivalent of a shadow cast by Something "objective and outside the self." (pages 10, bottom, and 11, bottom) Also, did Otto miss anything?
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Why would someone want to HAVE a numinous experience?
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Why would someone want to AVOID a numinous experience?
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Why do "men shut their eyes," to such experiences?
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Which two ideas in The Idea of the Holy do you see in the experiences of Siddhartha (e.g., rational/non-rational, the numinous, Wholly Other, creature-feeling, mysterium tremendum, mysterium fascinans)? Explain!
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How can experiencing beauty be a numinous experience? (See Ch. 2, first paragraph, last sentence).
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In your family/school/community/society, explain how the kinds of experiences described in The Idea of the Holy are
- ...encouraged?
- ...discouraged?
- ...seen as spiritual in nature?
- ...seen as a symptom of a medical condition requiring attention?