What’s with the pictures?
The numinous never gets boring.
That’s because it had three characters.
With three characters you can tell a tale as old as time.
Mysterium tremendum et fascinans.
Rudolf Otto shed light on this Latin idea.*
Mysterium: Wholly Other, experienced with blank wonder, stupor
Tremendum: Awefulness, terror, demonic dread, awe, absolute unapproachability, “wrath” of God, overpoweringness, majesty, might, sense of one’s own nothingness in contrast to its power, creature-feeling, sense of objective presence, dependence, energy, urgency, will, vitality
Fascinans: Potent charm, friendly mercy, warm grace, attractiveness in spite of fear, terror, etc.
Grasping at glimpses… that’s all.
*Based on The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923; 2nd ed., 1950 [Das Heilige, 1917].