There were lasting rumors that the fall was a suicide attempt but this has never been confirmed. On 6 March 1937, he died of pneumonia, after suffering serious injuries falling about twenty meters from a tower in October 1936. He retired in 1929 but continued writing afterward. Although he received several other calls, he remained in Marburg for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, in 1915, he became ordinary professor at the University of Breslau, and in 1917, at the University of Marburg's Divinity School, then one of the most famous Protestant seminaries in the world. He then served in the post-war constituent assembly in 1918, and remained involved in the politics of the Weimar Republic. In 1917, he spearheaded an effort to simplify the system of weighting votes in Prussian elections. Otto became a member of the Prussian parliament in 1913 and retained this position through the First World War. He cited a 1911 visit to a Moroccan synagogue as a key inspiration for the theme of the Holy he would later develop. Otto's fascination with non-Christian religions was awakened during an extended trip from 1911 to 1912 through North Africa, Palestine, British India, China, Japan, and the United States. By 1906, he held a position as extraordinary professor, and in 1910 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen. He attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Göttingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's understanding of the Holy Spirit ( Die Anschauung von heiligen Geiste bei Luther: Eine historisch-dogmatische Untersuchung), and his habilitation on Kant ( Naturalistische und religiöse Weltansicht). Life īorn in Peine near Hanover, Otto was raised in a pious Christian family. Otto eventually came to conceive of his work as part of a science of religion, which was divided into the philosophy of religion, the history of religion, and the psychology of religion. While his work started in the domain of liberal Christian theology, its main thrust was always apologetical, seeking to defend religion against naturalist critiques. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions. Rudolf Otto (25 September 1869 – 7 March 1937) was an eminent German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist.

Otto the idea of the holy