Derived, apparently, from the name of the Teutonic god Odin, and characteristic, it could be argued, of 19th c. theories (and fads) searching for mystical, all-pervasive unitary forces, meant to replace the spiritual vacuum introduced by the disruptions of industrial capitalism, the French revolution, the revolutions of 1848, Darwinian theory, and contemporary philisophical trends, which increasingly abandonded traditional ideas of God and scripture in organizing nature and society. (cf the Aether, Nietzsche's Ubermensch, the fads of electromagnetic therapy, hypnotism, Rasputinism, Mormonism, et al., and leading, more obliquely, through scientific methodology, to Freudian and Jungian theory {where the Protestant personal relationship with God was replaced by a relationship with one's own subconscious}, Einsteinian unified force theory {a rationalized version of the music of the spheres}, and even Schroedinger's cat {whereby the mystery of the Holy Trinity was replaced by the paradox of existence in and of itself.}) Of course, the combination of Teutonic mysticism and pseudo-science also led to some rather darker places in the 20th c., with particularly tragic consequences for Leningrad. Intellectual history rarely follows a straight and bright line of progress.
Derived, apparently, from the name of the Teutonic god Odin, and characteristic, it could be argued, of 19th c. theories (and fads) searching for mystical, all-pervasive unitary forces, meant to replace the spiritual vacuum introduced by the disruptions of industrial capitalism, the French revolution, the revolutions of 1848, Darwinian theory, and contemporary philisophical trends, which increasingly abandonded traditional ideas of God and scripture in organizing nature and society. (cf the Aether, Nietzsche's Ubermensch, the fads of electromagnetic therapy, hypnotism, Rasputinism, Mormonism, et al., and leading, more obliquely, through scientific methodology, to Freudian and Jungian theory {where the Protestant personal relationship with God was replaced by a relationship with one's own subconscious}, Einsteinian unified force theory {a rationalized version of the music of the spheres}, and even Schroedinger's cat {whereby the mystery of the Holy Trinity was replaced by the paradox of existence in and of itself.}) Of course, the combination of Teutonic mysticism and pseudo-science also led to some rather darker places in the 20th c., with particularly tragic consequences for Leningrad. Intellectual history rarely follows a straight and bright line of progress.
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