Thelema & Otto's Idea of the Holy, pt.2
Thelema & Otto’s Idea of the Holy
Part 5: The numinous as “mysterium tremendum”
Part 6: Religious practice as Identification with Numen
Part 5: The numinous as “mysterium tremendum”
Otto elucidated the term “holy” under the less ambiguous figure of “numen.” He then goes on to explain this “numen” with a famous phrase “mysterium tremendum.”
"We are dealing with something for which there is only one appropriate expression, 'mysterium tremendum'... that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.12-13
To understand this phrase each word must be analyzed.
The Analysis of ‘Mysterium’
First, the term mysterium may be understood as the ineffability of the numinous which leads us to understand holiness as not entirely amenable to reason (see part 1 of this essay).
"Conceptually mysterium denotes merely that which is hidden and esoteric, that which is beyond conception or understanding, extraordinary and unfamiliar. The term does not define the object more positively in its qualitative character. But though what is enunciated in the word is negative, what is meant is something absolutely and intensely positive. This pure positive we can experience in feelings, feelings which our discussion can help to make clear to us, in so far as it arouses them actually in our hearts."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.13
In the face of the ineffability of the numinous we may proclaim,
"Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott" (Tersteegen)
['A God comprehended is no God.']
- as quoted by R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.25
Or we might exclaim with Crowley,
"I am He. Speak not, O my God! Let the work be accomplished in silence."
- A. Crowley, Liber VII, 1:7
This mysterium can be further analyzed by introducing two terms: the “Wholly Other” and fascinans. Let us first look into what is meant by the “Wholly Other.”
Otto explains the attitude of the individual when encountering the facet of the numinous he understands as a mysterium,
"We need an expression for the mental reaction peculiar to it [mysterium]; and here, too, only one word seems appropriate, though, as it is strictly applicable only to a 'natural' state of mind, it has here meaning only by analogy: it is the word 'stupor’ … it signifies blank wonder, an astonishment that strikes us dumb, amazement absolute... Taken in the religious sense, that which is 'mysterious' is - to give it perhaps the most striking expression - the 'wholly other' (θατερον, anyad, alienum), that which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible, and the familiar, which therefore falls quite outside the limits of the 'canny,' and is contrasted with it, filling the mind with blank wonder and astonishment."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.26
Therefore it is the unintelligibility and unfamiliarity (in relation to the normal experience of consciousness) which gives rise to this explanation of the numinous as “Wholly Other.” He explains further,
"The truly 'mysterious' object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon something inherently' wholly other,' whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a wonder that strikes us chill and numb."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.28
In speaking of this “Wholly Other,” Otto treads into territory that is quite familiar for Thelemites who are used to seeing this numinous under the figure of “Naught,” “None,” or “Nothing.”
"In mysticism we have in the 'beyond' (επεκεινα) again the strongest stressing and over-stressing of those non-rational elements which are already inherent in all religion. Mysticism continues to its extreme point in this contrasting of the numinous object (the numen), as the 'wholly other,' with ordinary experience. Not content with contrasting it with all that is of nature or this world, mysticism concludes by contrasting it with Being itself and all that 'is,' and finally actually calls it 'that which is nothing.' By this 'nothing' is meant not only that of which nothing can be predicated, but that which is absolutely and intrinsically other than and opposite of everything that is and can be thought. But while exaggerating to the point of paradox this negation and contrast - the only means open to conceptual thought to apprehend the mysterium - mysticism at the same time retains the positive quality of the 'wholly other' as a very living factor in its over-brimming religious emotion. But what is true of the strange 'nothingness' of our mystics holds good equally of the sunyam and the sunyata, the 'void' and emptiness' of the Buddhist mystics... the 'void' of the eastern, like the 'nothing' of the western, mystic is a numinous ideogram of the 'wholly other'"
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.29-30
The unspeakable, unthinkable nature of this numen is elucidated in somewhat paradoxical terms in “The Book of Lies,”
“That is not which is. / The only Word is Silence. / The only Meaning of that Word is not. / Thoughts are false.”
- A. Crowley, The Book of Lies, ch.5
This ineffable “Nothing” itself is mentioned many times in Crowley’s writings including a full explanation in his early essay “Berashith” but its quintessence comes in the Book of the Law,
“O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous!”
- Liber AL vel Legis, I:27
As mentioned before, the mysterium can be analyzed both as “Wholly Other” and with the help of another term: fascinans. In explaining the mysterium aspect of the numinous Otto says,
"The qualitative content of the numinous experience, to which 'the mysterious' stands as form, is in one of its aspects the element of daunting 'awefulness' and majesty’… but it is clear that it has at the same time another aspect, in which it shows itself as something uniquely attractive and fascinating."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.31
This numen, as tremendum (which will be analyzed later) and in all of its ineffability, is something that draws he who experiences into it with a sort of fascination.
"The daemonic-divine object may appear to the mind an object of horror and dread, but at the same time it is no less something that allures with a potent charm, and 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."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.31
This enticing fascination can be seen under the figure of Nuit in Liber AL vel Legis,
“Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you! I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky. To me! To me!”
- Liber AL vel Legis, I:63-65
The aspect of the numinous as a mysterium is therefore both “Wholly Other” in its unintelligibility and ineffability, known to mystics as “Nothing” (as no thought or word can adequately portray it), but the numen also has the characteristic of fascinans, being fascinating, enticing, and entrancing.
The Analysis of ‘Tremendum’
We have just analyzed half of the phrase “mysterium tremendum,” used to describe the new term for “holy” which Otto calls the numen. Now we turn our attention to the second half of this phrase, tremendum. On this, Otto initially states,
"[The Greek] δεινοσ is the equivalent of dirus and tremendus. It may mean evil or imposing, potent and strange, queer and marvellous, horrifying and fascinating, divine and daemonic, and a source of 'energy'... δεινοσ is simply the numinous… The nearest that German can get to it is in the expression das Ungeheure (monstrous)... The variations of meaning in the German word ungeheuer can be well illustrated from Goethe. He, too, uses the word to denote the huge in size - what is too vast for our faculty of space-perception, such as the immeasurable vault of the night sky."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.39-40
An analogy will be immediately apparent to the Thelemite: Nuit. In the first chapter of the Book of the Law we hear Nuit say,
“I am Heaven… Since I am Infinite Space and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt… I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.”
- Liber AL vel Legis, I:21, 22, 64
She is described further as “the gemméd azure” (AL I:14), “the stooping starlight” (AL I:16), “azure-lidded woman” (AL I:19), “a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth & her lithe body arched for love” (AL I:26), “the Queen of Space… continuous one of Heaven” (AL I:27), etc. Nuit - as well as the descriptions of Adonai/God in Liber LXV and Liber VII, for example - continually call to mind this aspect of “tremendum” in the numinous.
Otto seeks to further explain “tremendum” by three characteristics: awe-fulness, overpowering-ness (majestas), and energy. First, let us examine the attribute of ‘awe-fulness’ with its analogies of “tremor” and “fear.” Otto writes,
"Tremor is in itself merely the perfectly familiar and 'natural' emotion of fear. But here the term is taken, aptly enough but still only by analogy, to denote a quite specific kind of emotional response, wholly distinct from that of being afraid, though it so far resembles it that the analogy of fear may be used to throw light upon its nature. There are in some languages special expressions which denote, either exclusively or in the first instance, this 'fear' that is more than fear proper. The Hebrew hiqdish (hallow) is an example... Specially noticeable is the 'emah of Yahweh ('fear of God'), which Yahweh can pour forth... Here we have a terror fraught with an inward shuddering such as not even the most menacing and overpowering created thing can instill... In the Greek language we have a corresponding term in σεβαστοσ... Of modern languages English has the words 'awe', 'aweful', which in their deeper and most special sense approximate closely to our meaning... 'Religious dread' (or 'awe') would perhaps be a better designation... It first begins to stir in the feeling of 'something uncanny', 'eerie', or 'weird'. It is this feeling which, emerging in the mind of primeval man, forms the starting-point for the entire religious development in history."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.14
Although one might say that part of the mystical and magical path is the conquering of this fear, it appears in Thelemic literature as well:
“He enveloped me with his demon tentacles; yea, the eight fears took hold upon me. “
- Liber LXV, IV:35
It should be remembered, though, that this is not normal fear but the religious awe, which fills one with a consciousness explained earlier (see section 4 of this essay) as “creature-consciousness.” The response to such a presence is trembling and shuddering.
"The 'shudder' reappears in a form ennobled beyond measure where the soul, held speechless, trembles inwardly to the farthest fibre of its being. It invades the mind mightily in Christian worship with the words: 'Holy, holy, holy'... The 'shudder' has here lost its crazy bewildering note, but not the ineffable something that holds the mind. It has become a mystical awe, and sets free as its accompaniment, reflected in self-consciousness, that 'creature-feeling' that has already been described as the feeling of personal nothingness and submergence before the awe-inspiring object directly experienced. This is the οργε (orgé), the Wrath of Yahweh, which recurs in the New Testament as οργη θεον, and which is clearly analogous to the idea occurring in many religions of a mysterious ira deorum [divine ire]...”
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.17
Aside from mentioning the cry of “Holy, holy, holy’ which we said was reproduced in the Gnostic Mass (see section 3 of this essay) as “HAGIOS, HAGIOS, HAGIOS IAO” we see the accompanying reaction of shuddering to this awe-ful object of consciousness. Another example of this may be taken from Liber LXV,
“Stained is the purple of thy mouth, O brilliant one, with the white glory of the lips of Adonai. The foam of the grape is like the storm upon the sea; the ships tremble and shudder, the shipmaster is afraid. That is thy drunkenness, O holy one, and the winds whirl away the soul of the scribe into the happy haven. O Lord God! let the haven be cast down by the fury of the storm! Let the foam of the grape tincture my soul with Thy light!”
- Liber LXV I:59-62
The aspect of wrathfulness which inspires awe can be found also in many passages of the Holy Books of Thelema (the entirety of the third chapter of Liber AL could be quoted as an example). The wrathful aspect of the numinous is poetically announced in Liber LXV,
“Thou art Sebek the crocodile against Asar; thou art Mati, the Slayer in the Deep. Thou art Typhon, the Wrath of the Elements, O Thou who transcendest the Forces in their Concourse and Cohesion, in their Death and their Disruption. Thou art Python, the terrible serpent about the end of all things!”
- A. Crowley, Liber LXV, III:30
as well as in Liber VII,
“The forst of the spears of the Most High is called Night, and Hades, and the Day of Wrath; but I am His captain, and I bear His cup.”
- A. Crowley, Liber VII, VII:36
Connected with this idea of wrath and awe-fulness is that of “overpoweringness,”
"It will be felt at once that there is yet a further element which must be added, that, namely, of 'might', 'power' 'absolute overpoweringness'. We will take to represent this term majestas, majesty. The tremendum may then be rendered more adequately tremenda majestas, or 'aweful majesty'... It is especially in relation to this element of majesty or absolute overpoweringness that the creature-consciousness, of which we have already spoken, comes upon the scene, as a sort of shadow or subjective reflection of it. Thus, in contrast to 'the overpowering' of which we are conscious as an object over against the self, there is the feeling of one's own submergence, of being but 'dust and ashes' and nothingness. And this forms the numinous raw material for the feeling of religious humility."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.19-20
In the context of the majestas of the numinous, the overwhelming power which consumes the consciousness, Otto talks of the connections to mysticism,
"We come upon the ideas, first, of the annihilation of the self, and then, as its complement, of the transcendent as the sole and entire reality. These are the characteristic notes of mysticism in all its forms, however otherwise various in content."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.21
The idea of annihilation of the self is treated in many places in Crowley’s writing like the previously quoted section in “The Book of Lies” and “Liber Cheth” (see part 4 of this essay). Crowley also gives practical instruction on this in terms of Will,
"The Aspirant must well understand that it is no paradox to say that the Annihilation of the Ego in the Abyss is the condition of emancipating the true Self, and exalting to unimaginable heights. So long as one remains "one's self," one is overwhelmed by the Universe; destroy the sense of self, and every event is equally an expression of one's Will, since its occurrence is the resultant of the concourse of the forces which one recognizes as one's own"
- A. Crowley, The Law is For All, p.95
In addition to this aspect of “tremendum” being characterized both by “awe-fulness” and “overpoweringness” (majestas), it carries also the attribute of “energy.”
"There is, finally, a third element comprised in those of tremendum and majestas, awefulness and majesty, and this I venture to call the 'urgency' or 'energy' of the numinous object. It is particularly vividly perceptible in the οργε or 'wrath'; and it everywhere clothes itself in symbolical expressions - vitality, passion, emotional temper, will, force, movement, excitement, activity, impetus."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.23
The writings of Thelema also abound with references to this passionate energy and activity, for example:
“Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.”
- Liber AL vel Legis, II:20
“[Hadit] is eternal energy, the Infinite Motion of Things, the central core of all being.”
- A. Crowley, Liber DCCCXXXVII: The Law of Liberty, part III
“Lord secret and most holy, source of life, source of love, source of liberty, be thou ever constant and mighty within us, force of energy, fire of motion; with diligence let us ever labour with thee, that we may remain in thine abundant joy.”
- A. Crowley, Liber XV vel Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae, part V
“GOD is concealed in the whirling energy of Nature.”
- A. Crowley, The Book of Lies, ch.0
The references are nearly endless in this philosophy of Will. Again turning his attention toward mysticism, Otto explains this aspect of “energy:”
"[It is] a force that knows not stint nor stay, which is urgent, active, compelling, and alive. In mysticism, too, this element of 'energy' is a very living and vigorous factor, at any rate in the 'voluntaristic' mysticism, the mysticism of love, where it is very forcibly seen that 'consuming fire' of love whose burning strength the mystic can hardly bear. And in this urgency and pressure the mystic's 'love' claims a perceptible kinship with the οργε itself, the scorching and consuming wrath of God; it is the same 'energy,' only differently directed... The element of 'energy' reappears in Fichte's speculations on the Absolute as the gigantic, never-resting, active world-stress, and in Schopenhauer's daemonic 'Will.'
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.23-24
In Thelema, where “Love is the law, love under will” (Liber AL I:57), we can see, again, nearly endless references to this “mysticism of love.” One particular aspect of this mentioned above by Otto, the “’consuming’ fire of love,” can be seen in innumerable writings of Crowley. Here are just a few examples:
"Even as the profane hand / Reacheth to the sacred sand, / Fire consumes him that his name be forgotten in the land. "
- A. Crowley, Rites of Eleusis, The Rite of Saturn
"Penned by the master mage to his desire, / She baffles his seductions and his ire, / Praying God’s all-annihilating fire. "
- A. Crowley, Liber Turris, line 11
" In the East is the Magick Fire, in which all burns up at last."
- A. Crowley, Liber ABA part II, Preliminary Remarks
"INTO the Magick Fire all things are cast. It symbolizes the final burning up of all things in Shivadarshana. It is the absolute destruction alike of the Magician and the Universe."
- A. Crowley, Magick in Theory & Practice, ch.26
"30. Concerning the Enflaming of the Heart: …In the end shall come suddenly a great flame and a devouring, and burn thee utterly. Now of these sparks, and of these splutterings of flame, and of these beginnings of the Infinite Fire, thou shalt thus be aware. For the sparks thy heart shall leap up, and thy ceremony or meditation or toil shall seem of a sudden to go of its own will; and for the little flames this shall be increased in volume and intensity; and for the beginnings of the Infinite Fire thy ceremony shall be caught up unto ravishing song, and thy meditation shall be ecstasy, and thy toil shall be a delight exceeding all pleasure thou hast ever known. And of the Great Flame that answereth thee it may not be spoken; for therein is the End of this Magick Art of Devotion."
- A. Crowley, Liber Astarte vel Berylli
"Satan, the Old Serpent, in the Abyss, the Lake of Fire and Sulphur, is the Sun-Father, the vibration of Life, Lord of Infinite Space that flames with His Consuming Energy, and is also that throned Light whose Spirit is suffused throughout the City of Jewels."
- A. Crowley, Magick in Theory & Practice, Appendix III
"By addition [of 5 & 6] ariseth Eleven, the number of True Magick: and by multiplication Three Hundred, the Number of the Holy Spirit or Fire, the letter Shin, wherein all things are consumed utterly."
- A. Crowley, Liber 150: De Lege Libellum
"Then in the might of the Lion did I formulate unto myself that holy and formless fire, Qadosh, which darteth and flasheth through the depths of the Universe. "
- A. Crowley, Liber Ararita, VII:0
The aspect of a consuming fire of love can be seen to be intimately involved in Thelema. This fire that consumes the ego leaves one to identify with the numen itself, the subject of the next section.
The numinous is now understood as a mysterium under the double-figure of being “Wholly Other” in its ineffability/unintelligibility and fascinans in the sense that it is enticing/entrancing as well as tremendum under the triple-figure of awe-fulness, overpoweringness (majestas), and energy.
Part 6: Religious practice as Identification with Numen
Rudolph Otto explains the intellectual practices of religion and then moves on to the practice (or even necessary conclusion) of mysticism: the identification of the self with the overpowering, awe-inspiring energy numen.
"Religious practice may manifest itself in those normal and easily intelligible forms which occupy so prominent a place in the history of religion, such forms as propitiation, petition, sacrifice, thanking, &c. But besides these there is a series of strange proceedings which are constantly attracting greater and greater attention, and in which it is claimed that we may recognize, besides mere religion in general, the particular roots of mysticism. I refer to those numerous curious modes of behavior and fantastic form of mediation, by means of which the religious man attempts to master 'the mysterious', and to fill himself and even to identify himself with it... Possession of and by the numen becomes an end in itself; it begins to be sought for its own sake; and the wildest and most artificial methods of asceticism are put into practice to attain it. In a word, the vita religiosa [religious life] begins; and to remain in these strange and bizarre states of numinous possession becomes a good in itself, even a way of salvation... Widely various as these states are in themselves, yet they have this element in common, that in them the mysterium is experienced in its essential, positive, and specific character, as something that bestows upon man a beatitude beyond compare, but one whose real nature he can neither proclaim in speech nor conceive in thought, but may know only by a direct and living experience."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.32-33
He explains again,
"A characteristic common to all types of mysticism is the Identification, in different degrees of completeness, of the personal self with the transcendent Reality... It must be Identification with the Something that is at once absolutely supreme in power and reality and wholly non-rational."
- R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, p.22
This identification can be found in the Holy Books of Thelema in many places, often taking the characteristic form of “I am He!” (as in Section Gg, “The Attainment,” of Liber Samekh). Crowley explains this in detail,
"This vision is, I believe, the first and the last of all Spiritual Experience. For though He is attributed to Malkuth [ Malkuth: the tenth Sephira.], and the Door of the Path of His overshadowing, He is also in Kether (Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth in Kether - "as above, so beneath"), and the End of the "Path of the Wise" is identity with Him. So that while he is the Holy Guardian Angel, He is also Hua [The supreme and secret title of Kether.] and the Tao [The great extreme of the Yi King].m For since Intra Nobis Regnum deI [I.N.R.I.] all things are in Ourself, and all Spiritual Experience is a more of less complete Revelation of Him... "
- A. Crowley, "The Temple of Solomon the King," Equinox I(01)