For my most faithful readers and friends, the title implying I have a reason to like Halloween is shocking. Since the 1980s, I have eschewed this holiday, finding it deeply troubling on spiritual terms. There are many reasons, none of which matter for this post, but on the whole, as a Christian, I think I am most troubled by society’s eager embrace of the macabre and the dark.
However, it is that aspect that as recently inspired me to think slightly differently. No, I won’t be trick or treating…not myself, not my daughter at home and the lights are off at my house signaling to children in our neighborhood that we are not available. What is this new idea that at least makes the month somewhat palpable? Well, I hinted at it in my first paragraph, and it’s connected to the name of my church.
We are Numinous. That word is something I first read in C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain. In this excellent explanation of the purposes and power of God, Lewis starts out by demonstrating the supreme personage of God. He does so by using this word Numinous. He explains it thus:
Those who have not met this term may be introduced to it by the following device. Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told ‘There is a ghost in the next room’, and believe it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for on one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is ‘uncanny’ rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply “There is a mighty spirit in the room’, and believe it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the substance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it—an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare’s words “Under it my genius is rebuked’. This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous. (The Problem of Pain, pp. 5-6)
The idea of Numinous is an attempt to express the “wholly other” of God, the notion that the Ultimate Force of Creation is a being that is completely beyond humans. Thus, in the presence of such a force, the human becomes acutely aware of our own limitations.
I recently discovered that Lewis was himself introduced to this concept by 1923 book The Idea of The Holy written by German theologian Rudolf Otto. I have spent the past two months digging into this excellent hidden work of faith, and my own understanding of The Numinous has grown much. In fact, it will become a topic of discussion at the church during worship, and perhaps may show up more here. So, then, what does that have to do with Halloween?
Well, part of the challenge in helping someone at least entertain the notion of God, let alone Jesus Christ, is that most modern people dismiss the need, let alone the existence of a “Higher Power.” Otto hits this point, writing in the early part of the 20th century, where it had become clear in the inter-war period that the idea of the supremacy of the mind of the human had taken firm hold. This could be seen as the “triumph of the Enlightenment,” never minding the attempted counterbalance of Romanticism, its appreciation of the non-rational, the spirit and nature. No, by the 1920s, what had taken hold in almost every industry and aspect of human life was that a rational, thinking-first understanding, comprehension…actually “CONTROL” could be achieved.
Otto writes about this even in the idea of how such a culture perceives sin or moral error. “The meaning of ‘sin’ is not understood….These are serious [people] of sincere moral endeavor who cannot understand what…’redemption’ may be, and dismiss it with a shrug. They are aware they [may be] erring and imperfect but they know and put into practice methods of self-discipline, and so labor onward upon their way with sturdy resolution.” Meaning, there is a loss of grasp of the spiritual nature and power.
I think this idea is best expressed in current times by the now decade-old movie The Matrix where Neo discovers that there is an entire world behind the world that he thinks he knows…and can control. No one can expect any sadness or contrition for sin from a people who have lost touch with the idea of the mysterium tremendum (to borrow from Otto), of a Supreme Being who is mysterious, tremendous, awe-ful and full of power and agency to act.
But at Halloween…. Here, for at least this one time of the year, I now realize people have this month where they are actually somewhat willing to consider that there are spirits that roam the land. Otto writes of this in explaining the attraction of many to ghost stories. He writes about the numinous that brings “a wonder that strikes us chill and numb.” Thus, in ghost stories, our modern-day stories of horror and terror, are built out of the near-numinous feeling of “dread, aroused by the ghost as that grisly horror.” Otto points out that the real enjoyment comes with “the relaxation of tension ensuing upon our release from [the fear of the story] relieves the mind in a pleasant and agreeable way.” Deeper, though, Otto points out that “the ghost’s real attraction rather consists in this, that of itself and in an uncommon degree it entices the imagination, awaking strong interest and curiosity”…in things spiritual, other-wordly.
Halloween can be a moment to help a culture dead to the depths of the Great Spirit remember yet again that there indeed are spirits, a world larger or slightly beyond, our world seen only with our rational eyes. This potential means that a person can, perhaps for the first time, become aware of the awe-fulness of the person of God. And as is so often stated in the Bible by those who have a visitation by God or his agents, “we shudder in dread” or “fall prone as if a dead person.” Otto writes “shuddering is something more than natural, ordinary fear. It implies that the mysterious is already beginning to loom before the mind, to touch the feelings.”
I don’t know how you approach Halloween. I usually try to just get through it. I often am frustrated by the financial waste that we put in as a culture, especially on such a dark concept. And yet, maybe this year, since you probably enjoy the holiday and look forward to the candy, the dress up and yes the dread of eerie stories, then my prayer for you is as you shudder through some haunted house or in watching some terror-inducing film, in the back of your mind will begin to feel the prickling sensation of a Greater Power. The numinous feeling is a real feeling of a real Being.
He is alive. He is not to be trifled with. And yet, as the CHristmas story expresses well, there is a good in Him from which He draws near to us. He becomes Immanuel.
Lewis gives us one more example of numinous, both the awe-fulness and the fascination of the sublime, in his wonderful story about Aslan. Read and think…maybe the numinous feeling you experience this year will be the coming of the Great Lion.
“Is – is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man?” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”