Phenomenology of Religion : A Systematic Approach

What follows is an attempt to see Otto the phenomenologist within wider developments in the field, and to take account of some recent criticisms. Everything that is said falls under the general headingof 'introduction to the study of religion'(or 'meta-religionswissenschaft') Within this wide field, we shall be specifically concerned with the possibility of a systematic phenomenology of religion, and with that phenomenology of religion which takes its starting point from Otto's awareness of the numinous in its non-rational and rational forms and manifestations. In addition to this central insight of Otto's and deriving to a large extent from it, are the morphological categories which can be traced back further than Otto to Chantepie de la Saussaye (1869-1937). These categories form part of classical phenomenology of religion down to Friedrich Heiler (1892-1967). We shall come back to these categories after looking at Otto's numinous as the starting point for a global phenomenology.