I can't tell you but I know it's mine

MYSTERY

“The feeling of [mysterium termendum] may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its ‘profane’, non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitement, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of—whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.”

Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. 1923.


COMMENT

The conjunction of the rational and non-rational completes a context. The rational side of religion, the theological system, provides the framework upon which to hang the non-rational Holy (or is it the other way around?). Further along in the text, Otto provides a musical analogy for this essential interrelationship. A poem, in this case the lyrics, represents the rational expression of some emotion while the music, more abstract by definition, evokes a mood that defies explication. Together they form something closer to a whole, but the extent to which that whole is apprehended and the relative weights of the two elements—rational and non-rational—differ with each person depend directly upon the individual’s progress along the path toward full maturity—spiritual maturity? philosophical maturity? The path, in any case, cannot be defined by authority whose own growth is arrested at the stage of pre-adolescent literalism.

CS