Mysterium Tremendum

“… Before going on to consider elements which unfold as the ‘tremendum’ develops, let us give a little further consideration to the first crude, primitive forms in which this ‘numinous dread’ or awe shows itself. It is the mark which really characterizes the so-called ‘Religion of Primitive Man’, and there it appears as ‘daemonic dread’. This crudely naive and primordial emotional disturbance, and the fantastic images to which it gives rise, are later overborne and ousted by more highly-developed forms of the numinous emotion, with all its mysteriously impelling power. …’’

“… It may serve to make the essential nature of the numinous consciousness clearer if we call to mind the manner in which it expresses itself outwardly, and how it spreads and is transmitted from mind to mind. There is, of course, no ‘transmission’ of it in the proper sense of the word; it cannot be ‘taught’, it must be ‘awakened’ from the spirit. …’’

Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 1917