Author’s vision quest, Sahara Desert, January 2008
I wander deeper into the Sahara Desert, away from the Tuaregs’ campfire, to find my sleeping place. Far from the others, I am drawn toward a rocky outcropping, but I stop about halfway when I notice Monica ahead of me, going to that same place. I make my bed right there in the sand, where I stop. Snug in my down sleeping bag, I rest in the dark starlight, looking up at the Milky Way, asking for the courage and readiness to “face the West,” the direction of mystery, darkness, and death, at this point in my vision quest journey. As soon as my eyes drift closed, into the hypnagogic state just before sleep takes over, I hear a door slam open, like a gunshot. I startle. I seem to feel or see, emerging out of the shadows, an otherworldly face framed by the door’s outline, in the threshold. The black eyes carry an expression that seems expressionless but isn’t. The presence of the being both thrills and frightens me. I greet “him,” and then he vanishes and sleep and dreams come. The next morning, goosebumps pile on top of goosebumps as Monica and I communicate in my mediocre French, and I discover that she, too, saw the dark figure in the doorway just before sleeping, but she slammed the door shut.
This indescribable, ineffable experience belongs in the category of the “numinous,” as defined by Rudolf Otto, with respect to religion, and adapted by Carl Jung as an essential component in his depth psychology. In his 1923 book Das Heilige, translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto adopted the word “numinous” from the Latin “numen,” meaning “divine will,” in order to name a holy experience or feeling, excluding all moral and rational aspects from the concept. The numinous is not all-good or all-bad, not the black and white duality that characterizes religious morality. Neither is the numinous a rational function. Jung refers to religion as the “conscientious regard for the irrational factors of the psyche and individual fate” (Ess. Jung 362). The numinous calls for one’s “conscientious regard” just as it calls one’s attention toward it. In fact, according to Otto, the only way to help another person understand the nonrational numinous is through rational explanation, as well as an evocation of the numinous feeling in the other person through comparison with similar experiences “until he reach the point at which ‘the numinous’ in him perforce begins to stir, to start into life and into consciousness” (Otto 7). The only way to begin to understand another’s numinous experience is through a comparison of one’s own encounters with the holy.
Author riding camel on Sahara Desert vision quest
When, on this desert journey, I described my feelings about this doorway figure and other numinous visions, I always juxtaposed the concepts of fear and fascination, prior to any familiarity with Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Otto names the feeling of humble smallness in the presence of divine power a “creature-feeling,” something more specific than a mere sense of dependence, his predecessor Friedrich Schleiermacher’s term (Otto 10). Otto details his definition of the numinous feeling with his two oppositional categories mysterium tremendum et fascinans. He takes the via negativa by employing “mystery” as a defining word, since it denotes a lack of revelation, something hidden, although the numinous mystery inspires a range of positive feelings as effects, from “a tranquil mood of deepest worship” to “intoxicated frenzy” (Otto 13). In the religious sense, mysterium means the “wholly other,” including the “supernatural” and “transcendent” (Otto 26, 30). Otto’s tremendum includes three aspects: fearful shuddering when faced with the wrath of a deity and a sense of “absolute unapproachability” (20); majesty that gives a sense of “absolute overpoweringness,” also called tremenda majestas (20); and the “urgency or energy of the numinous object” (23). Todd Gooch calls Otto’s structure of the numinous “bi-polar,” exhibiting a “power that is simultaneously repulsive and attractive, threatening and captivating, horrendous and alluring” (113).
When Jung discusses archetypes, he often uses the term “numinous” as a descriptor. For example, in “The Undiscovered Self” he writes that archetypes “have a numinous quality that sometimes arouses fear,” (Ess. Jung 372) and in “On the Nature of the Psyche” he states, “The archetypes have, when they appear, a distinctly numinous character which can only be described as ‘spiritual,’ if ‘magical’ is too strong a word. . . . It can be healing or destructive, but never indifferent. . .” (CW 8: 405). Jung provides a clear definition of archetypes in Symbols of Transformation, “The archetypes are the numinous, structural elements of the psyche and possess a certain autonomy and specific energy which enable them to attract, out of the conscious mind, those contents which are best suited to themselves” (CW 5: 344). My dark face emerging from the desert doorway could be the archetype of shaman, magician, primitive human, or wise guide. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krișna’s archetype is that of God or the Self and wholeness. The energy and presence of the archetype is what makes these experiences holy and affects the subject with mysterium tremendum.
Jung’s archetypes also exude mysterium fascinans. “For when an archetype appears in a dream, in a fantasy, or in life, it always brings with it a certain influence or power by virtue of which it either exercises a numinous or a fascinating effect, or impels to action” (CW 7: 109). One is drawn toward the archetype because of its intrigue and mystery. Jung elaborates on the archetype’s effect: “. . . the archetype has a numinous character: it exerts a fascination. . . and may be said in the long run to mold the destinies of individuals by unconsciously influencing their thinking, feeling, and behavior, even if this influence is not recognized until long afterward” (CW 5: 467). Here he states that the archetype’s influence can be life-changing, regardless of whether or not the subject pays any attention or has any awareness that he or she has been visited by such a power. In contrast, Andrew Samuels, a post-Jungian, describes a shift away from “single, big, decorous, numinous expectations of archetypal imagery” with more focus on the subject’s perception, experience, and interaction with the image. He describes this perspectival shift, “The archetypal is a perspective defined in terms of its impact, depth, consequence, and grip. The archetypal is in the emotional experience of perception and not in a pre-existing list of symbols” (53). While dream dictionaries and other reductionistic lists of symbols constrict the interaction between conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche, living symbols are still vitally important to each person’s psyche, and one ought to investigate the soul’s metaphors.
Arjuna’s vision of Krishna as the numinous Self, from the Bhagavad Gita
Much depends upon the ability to recognize the numinous when it erupts into consciousness. Some symbols are more subtle than others. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna’s Cosmic Vision is a direct experience, unlike a dream with its manifold images. A friend described his recent dream: He was on a journey through a forest, and along the way, he encountered a crone on a bridge with a herd of pigs. He nudged the pigs out of the way with his shoe and forcefully crossed the bridge, ignoring the old woman, on his way to he-didn’t-know-where. Later his analyst suggested he return to the bridge using active imagination and speak with the old woman, who turned out to be the archetypal Goddess with her boars. He returned seven nights in a row, as the Goddess instructed, and received a different gift from her each night. If his analyst had not identified the numinous in his dream, my friend would have passed by the golden treasures that his psyche was trying to convey to his consciousness. Jungian psychologist Edward Edinger acknowledges that sometimes “the presence of the analyst [is] needed to release the numinosity of the dream images” (Ego 224). A partner or group acting as a listener can be a third thing in the individual’s dialogue between ego and Self, an activator to bring awareness of the numinous into consciousness.
The ego moves through cycles of identification and alienation from the Self over the course of one’s lifetime. In order to experience the Self as the Other, one must be disidentified from it. According to Edinger, “As long as one is unconsciously identified with God he cannot experience His existence” (Ego 52). There must be two entities, the conscious ego and the unconscious Self, in order to conjoin in the “transcendent function.” In his essay on “The Transcendent Function,” Jung describes the coming together of these two opposites, ego and unconscious, to make the third thing (CW 8: 181). The ego and Self make a partnership to create consciousness in a kind of numinous coniunctio (Edinger, Transformation 49). The givenness of the numinous along the axis is a necessary requirement for the transcendent function to work. If one tries to force the numinous to appear, whether by magic or religious ritual, without the proper attitude of humility and surrender, the connection between ego and Self will not occur. Similarly, it is dangerous to try to steal the numinous without permission; be careful lest Artemis turn you into a stag on your way to dismemberment, like Actaeon. No, it is better to travel this axis road like a pilgrim with Otto’s “creature-feeling” rather than an inflated ego. The consequences are serious.
Jung warns that “the rediscovered unconscious often has a really dangerous effect on the ego.” The ego can become over-identified with the Self, resulting in “soul loss” or berzerk, trance-like states (CW 8: 183; Psych. and Relig. 19). Further warnings include: “schizophrenic dissociation, inflation of the ego, fascination, or possession; as well as the broader social consequences of fanaticism. . .” (Agnel 1164). On the other hand, a beneficial connection along the ego-Self axis can open the way for further individuation progress and a “new level of being” (CW 8: 189). Edinger describes a healthy relationship between the ego and Self as the ego’s open, receptive attitude where “a kind of conscious dialogue between the ego and emerging symbols becomes possible. The symbol is then able to perform its proper function as releaser and transformer of psychic energy with full participation of conscious understanding” (Ego 110). The numinous quality plays a vital role by enticing the ego to seek more connection with the Self and continue the adventure. Ginette Paris offers a warning against the sanctimonious “spiritual puffiness” of a savior complex associated with “the quasi-divine principle of the Self” (56). The Tibetan sand mandala can serve as a counterbalance between our need for the sacred and our desire for inflated certainty. I can touch wholeness for a moment, but it slips through my fingers like sand. The numinous passes through me; I can remember the feeling and image, but a new one may soon appear to add another tremendous, fascinating dimension to my lived experience.
Works Cited
Edinger, Edward F. Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche. Shambhala, 1992.
—. Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung’s “Answer to Job.” Inner City Books, 1992.
Jung, C. G. The Essential Jung. Anthony Storr, editor. Princeton UP, 1983.
—. Psychology and Religion. Yale UP, 1975.
—. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 8. Bollingen Series 20. Princeton UP, 1969.
—. Symbols of Transformation. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 5. Bollingen Series 20. Princeton UP, 1990.
—. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 7. Bollingen Series 20. Princeton UP, 1967.
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Trans. John W. Harvey. Oxford UP, 1936.
Paris, Ginette. Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology after Neuroscience. Routledge, 2007.
Samuels, Andrew. Jung and the Post-Jungians. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.