Otto (1923, p. 11) writes about a powerful, enthralling experience that is “felt as objective and outside the self.” Otto’s numinous experience is simultaneously awe-some and awe-full. We are enthralled and repelled. We feel powerless in the presence of the numinous yet seem to gain power (“inspiration”) from participation in its wonderment. These complex reactions capture my experiences at Salisbury and Carlsbad much better than the term “regression” (though there certainly were regressive dynamics in the cathedral and storm).
Using more contemporary psychological terms, the boundaries between internal and external locus of control seem to be shattered when one is enmeshed in a numinous experience. The outside enters the inside, and the inside is drawn to the outside. As Rollo May mentions, the security base offered by a boundary between subject and object is threatened, if not obliterated. The Salisbury Cathedral entered my psyche, and concern about control in my own life was pulled out into the rainstorm. When the numinous is a Void, then we are pulled into a nothingness that is indeed anxiety-provoking. For example, when we arrive at the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, there is not only the beauty of the rock formations and the deep appreciation for the ancient age of the geological structures we are viewing, but also the breath-taking sense of the Void—the massive amount of “air” (non-structure) that appears before us.
Fear of Falling: for many of us who stand near the edge of the canyon, there is the fear of falling—even though we are standing many feet from the edge. This fear is based on the compelling force of the abyss formed by the Colorado River that winds through the canyon. We are psychologically pulled into the canyon and can easily imagine the extended fall to the riverbed many feel below the rim where we are standing. The “numinostic” pull of the canyon is felt deeply in our head, heart, and guts. Even when stepping away from the rim and perhaps having a meal at the Tolar Hotel by the rim, there is a pull toward the canyon. We look out the window where the canyon is in full display.
We don’t actually need a deep canyon to feel the awe-full experience of falling into the Void. The horrible and dreadful images and pictures of Voids in primitive cultures continue to enthrall us—leading us to feelings of profound anxiety. I imagine Ginnungagap from my youth. This is the Void existing before the world was created. Or there is the Mesopotamian myth of the Void present prior to the formation of an orderly world. Ruled over by Tiamat, a primordial god, this state of nothingness or disorder was experienced in real life by those living in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Thus, as has often been the case, the Void is elusive and must be represented by something that is tangible—such as the yearly flooding of the two rivers that form the Fertile Crescent. Somehow, a formless power from outside time or space seems to intervene and lead us to an experience that penetrates and changes (though we don’t know how) our unconscious life (the “backburners” to which I will turn shortly).
Numinosum and Uroborous: the noted psychologist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, is one of the main “architects” of nothingness, whom I will often reference in this essay. Jung built on and extended Otto’s portrayal of the “numinosum.” He (Jung,1938, p. 4) describes a numinous experience as one that “seizes and controls the human subject . . . an involuntary condition . . . due to a cause external to the individual. The numinosum is either a quality of a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence causing a peculiar alteration of consciousness.” Elsewhere, it is noted that Jung’s notion of numinous is:
“. . . rooted in experience and not just in ideation. The numinous is an experience which the individual undergoes and not simply the non-rational quality of dream-thoughts and mythologems. The numen or object present in or to the numinous state of mind is experienced as a powerful and meaning-filled other. It transcends conscious intention and control.” (Chapman, 1988, p. 89)
