the Treasures of Darkness

seeing as how no one is scheduled to post from our group on Monday, i thought i would post a "progress" update on my research so far. i found a book on Google scholar that the library happened to also have titled "the treasures of darkness: a history of Mesopotamian religion" (awesome title, right?) well, in the first little bit, Jacobson(the author) talks about some general stuff that goes with our entire group, not just my civilization.


"basic to all religion... is, we believe, a unique experience of confrontation with power not of this world. Rudolph Otto called this confrontation "numinous" and analyzed it as the experience of a myseterium tremendum et fascinosum, a confrontation with a "wholly other" outside of normal experience and indescribable in its terms; terrifying, ranging from sheer demonic dread through awe to sublime majesty; and fascinating, with irresistible attraction, demanding unconditional allegiance. it is the positive human response to this experience in thought( myth and theology) and action (cult and worship) that constitutes religion.
since the Numinous is not of this world it cannot in any real sense of the word be "described"; for all available descriptive terms are grounded in worldly experience and so fall short. at most, as Otto points out, it may be possible to evoke the human psychological reaction to the experience by means of analogy, calling upon the suggestive power of ordinary worldly experiences, the response to which in some sense resembles or leads toward the response to the Numinous, and which thus may serve as ideograms or metaphors for it"

Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness: a History of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven: Yale UP, 1976. Print.