On

the
Phenomenology
of
Religion:
An Anthropological Reflection
By Artchil C. Daug
Everything always becomes a bit different
as soon as it is put into words.
- Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha
When we say: "Every word in language
signifies something" we have so far
said nothing whatever.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations
Let us begin with a mysterium and let us
place them in quotation to remind ourselves
that this is not the signifier but the signified. I
am to attach nothing of this signified, other
than what Rudolf Otto described in signification
as a feeling that at times come sweeping like
a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a
tranquil mood and thrillingly vibrant and
resonant bursting in sudden eruption that
can lead to the strangest excitements, to
intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to
ecstasy. It is the creeping feeling in the flesh
that makes a man's hair bristle and his limbs
quake. A phenomenon is thus presented to
consciousnessan experience. What of it
then? Can there be something more than the
description?
In Hesses novel quoted above, Govinda a
friend of Siddhartha thought of their lives with
the hermits as a path to enlightenment. He
gave too much meaning on their scheduled
meditations and hoped to someday overcome
the eternal cycle. In the mind of Govinda,
through meditation they learned a temporary
release from the mundane quotidian world
and,
analogous
to
Ottos
mysterium,
experienced it through a presumably religious
fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of
the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing
of the senses against the pain and the
pointlessness of life. Presumably religious,
until Siddhartha pointed out that such a feat
can be accomplished by a drunk ox cart driver:
he wont feel his self any more, then he wont
feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a
short numbing of the senses. This is a case of
a description of experience structured in two
perspectives. Ottos mysterium can be seen in
the same light.

Perhaps, to be faithful to phenomenology,

we are to set aside Ottos language as well and
perform the first step of phenomenology: to
bracket the mysterium. To the things
themselves was the motto of Husserlian
phenomenologyepoch. But what is left of
the experience other than the language of the
experience? Is it not the case that the
phenomenon presented to consciousness is
the language of consciousness itself? To the
things themselves after all is a language.
What is it exactly that I am bracketing?
Mysterium (the signifier) is already an
attachment, or more appropriately, an arrest of
what the experience was. An arrest that cannot
be ignored naturally, even if we take into
consideration Eliades argument that the
sacred always manifests itself as a reality of a
wholly different order from natural realities. It
is true that language naively expresses the
tremendum, or the majestas, or the mysterium
fascinans by terms borrowed from the world of
nature or from mans secular mental life. But
we know that this analogical terminology is
due precisely to human inability to express the
ganz andere [wholly other]; all that goes
beyond mans natural experience, language is
reduced to suggesting by terms taken from
that experience. The division of reality
between that which I can sufficiently express in
language and that which I cannot should tell us
more about our language and not the reality it
is trying to arrest. To move from insufficiency
to the sacred (already a giving of meaning to
the insufficiency) follows what Wittgenstein
said: When we do philosophy we are like
savages, primitive people, who hear the
expressions of civilized men, put a false
interpretation on them, and then draw the
queerest conclusions from it.
This is because the identification of the
wholly other depends on the identification of
what is not wholly other or even just not
other. Given the limitations of language, and
given that such limitations are expressed in
the signs that Otto chose, such judgments as
the sacred always manifests itself as a reality
of a wholly different order is in itself
linguistically
determined.
The
numinous
appears to be an expression of the limitations
of language. To call it holy or sacred, and
presume its character vis--vis language, is
already an un-bracketing so-to-speak. The
mysterium is called mysterium in the same
way as it is called holy or sacred, and the
fascinating thing about it is the manner of

calling is in itself structured by the intention of

the caller. That is to say, that the moment the
mysterium experience is called mysterium it
enters discourse with the form and shape that
the intention of the caller gave it. Reading
Ottos writings on the mysterium tells me
more of Otto than the experience, because the
latter is presented by way of the former. All
experiences necessitated in the first instance
its own arrest because if I am to express it, I
can only do so in language.
The experience of there something in this
experience that my language cannot express
simply implies the limitation of the language.
Reading a description of that experience
discloses the writer and the language-game
s/he is playing. Epoch is always within the
context (or the language-game) of intent. In
descriptions of phenomena, there can never be
things themselves. Ottos or Eliades
phenomenology of religion, in their attempt to
ground (or arrest) the essence of religion,
neglected that they are not simply testifying
on behalf of the believers (Kristensen and
Sharma suggested it)trying to ground
experiences of believers on an essential
structurebut that they are testifying for
themselves and are disclosing religion from
their ways of describing the religious
experience. This is similar when one looks at
Schleiermacher, Hegel and Ritschl. However,
they presented themselves as having the
proper way, and not just a way, of describing
the religious experiencea very foundational
tone of voice.
Phenomenology is the dynamic attempt at
describing experiences based on noetic and
noematic horizons. This appears to be the case
considering Husserls continuous revision of his
phenomenology throughout his career. Authors
agree for example that it is a live question
whether there
is a single Husserlian
phenomenology
or
several
incompatible
Husserlian approaches. Heideggers turn
against his own Being and Time is telling of the
changes of the noetic horizons of the
phenomenologists. The shifts in Foucauldian
descriptions of powerthe way it continued
opening up to other possibilitiescan also be
seen as an outcome of the phenomenological
practice, which cannot but be hermeneutic in
style. It can even be said that phenomenology
discards certainty in favor of the quest for it.
Derridas deconstruction, setting aside the
authors
own
criticisms
against
the
foundationalist tendency of phenomenologists,

can be interpreted as a phenomenology of the

phenomenological engagement. The writings
of these philosophers, especially the later
writings of Husserl and Heidegger, reflects the
complications of providing descriptions. This
unfixedness implies that the description of
experiences is not as simple as, in the case of
the phenomenology of religion, classifying and
grouping (Kristensen proposes) the numerous
and widely divergent data in such a way that
an over-all view can be obtained of their
religious content and the religious values they
contain.
The problem perhaps is that, reading
through Sharma and Kristensen (if indeed they
can represent the phenomenology of religion),
is that phenomenology of religion poses as a
scientific and therefore systematic method for
an establishment of an over-all view. It is, as
Agamben argued, an attempt to use
experience in the service of knowledge.
Sharma
demonstrates
this
trait
when
describing
the
difference
between
phenomenology of religion and hermeneutics:
For
the
phenomenology
of
religion,
understanding is an end in itself. But for
hermeneutics such understanding should make
a contribution to life. Through Agamben, we
can interpret the scientific inclination of the
phenomenology of religion as a symptom of
the destruction of experience in the modern
world.
The mysterium is an experience, which infancy the phenomenologists attempted to
ground within the structure of science in an
attempt to contextualize the experience to a
religious over-all view. They are a Govinda: in
the longing to gain wisdom, they structure
everything in words hopingthis within their
noetic horizonto extract from them the
essence of the religious experience. However,
such explications according to Agamben can
only result to the destruction of the experience
itself. There are too much interpretation; too
much giving of meaning. And if we are to
believe Wittgenstein, too much dabble with
primitive language. The experience is simply
given too many attachments that it can no
longer cope up with the play of words. In the
case of the mysterium, it became religious
simply because it is shown only in the light of
religion. The phrase religious experience is
overly loaded with presuppositions which are
already themselves interpretations. The game
that religious phenomenologists are playing is
a bit different from other phenomenologists.

Anthropologists, who deal with thick

descriptions of experience, are themselves
engaging
phenomenology.
However,
the
difference lies in the interpretation. The
religious
phenomenologist
sees
the
mysterium as sacred and holy. With it the
experience is already arrested. A reflection
perhaps of the way religion works: an
experience that is seemingly difficult to explain
is arrested to the divine realmto the horizon
of faith, to the mystery that only God knows.
The creeping feeling of the flesh (the fear and
the trembling) is judged as the feeling in the
presence of the majesta and the wrath ()
it implies.
To other phenomenologists the mysterium
is, as Barthes put it, a
(satori)an eruption,
an earthquake that opens up a portion of
Being: a way to see the world of experience,
experience pointing to other experiences not
just in words (not even in the academic and
systematic
words
of
the
religious
phenomenologists) but in the sheer emptying
of the language itself. As the former (Govinda)
bows down submitting themselves to the
tyranny of sacred majestyto stay put in their
horizon and unravel the language of the nonlinguistic, the latter (Siddhartha) experiences
the seduction of Being to empty language and
fly away to other horizons. Here, it is not

that prevails, but , the disclosure of

Being. The creeping feeling of the flesh is likely
judged as having experienced anew.
In the closing chapter of Hesses novel,
Govinda who followed the path of the Gotama
Buddha finally had a serious conversation with
his friend Siddhartha who learned the way to
Being through a simple ferryman named
Vasudeva. Govinda realized that Siddhartha
already achieved enlightenment and asked the
latter to explain to him the method to such
enlightenment. Siddhartha began talking about
experience, and Govindalost in the maze of
methodsdid not understand the essence of
what Siddhartha explained. Siddhartha told
him that wisdom is something that cannot be
transmitted, especially in words because
everything always becomes a bit different as
soon as it is put into words. Our
phenomenologists of religion should also learn
from Siddhartha too. Not all experiences are
meant to be dissected in words. Sacred. Holy.
Being. They are words, except that the last
merely implies an existence. If the sacred and
the holy points to a realm completely unlike
ours,
then
they too
must
remember
Wittgenstein (though this not in the same light
as the Tractatus): What we cannot speak about
we must pass over in silence.