Thursday, June 29, 2006
(10:26 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Previously Undiscovered Medicinal Value
This comes from a book that I'm reading for 20th Century (Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy). The passage I'm going to cite comes from a section in which he's talking about the idea that certain naturally occuring items have a kind of mystical "power" that one can receive upon ingesting said items.It is really crucial that you actually read this block quote. I cannot stress this enough:
To notice power in plants, stones, and natural objects in general and to appropriate it by gaining possession of them; to eat the heart or liver of an animal or a man in order to make his power or strength one's own--this is not religion but science. Our science of medicine follows a similar prescription. If the 'power' of a calf's glands is good for goitre and imbecility, we do not know what virtue we may not hope to find in frogs' brains or Jews' livers.What the fuck, Rudolph Otto? (The quote is found on page 121 of the 1967 reprint published by Oxford University Press.)
