Account

Company

  Menu

Description

The title of this series comes from Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy, in which the German Lutheran theologian describes the "numinous" at the heart of religion as an experience preceding any systematic dogma or ethical component-a "feeling," in short, much closer to the sublimity of horror than any sensation popularly (read "dully") conceived as "religious" (love, happiness, well-being). An astounding array of writers have since, whether consciously or not, furthered Otto's observations. Some of them explicitly tie horror fiction to the holy. Scholarly works directly examining this connection include Victoria Nelson's The Secret Life of Puppets, Douglas Cowan's Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen, and Kirk J. Schneider's Horror and the Holy. Georges Bataille is also relevant here, along with the Communion books of Whitley Streiber, and contemporary philosophers like Rene Girard, Jeffrey Kripal, and Erik Davis.

Not surprisingly, consciousness of the interplay between weird fiction/horror and the holy (perhaps more properly thought of as "the numinous") has been most pronounced among fiction writers themselves. Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen consciously inhabited this space. H.P. Lovecraft almost certainly had a sense of it, and contemporary authors like Scott R. Jones, Matt Cardin, and many more have made the strange, sublime borderlands between terror and religiosity a central aspect of their work.

None of this is as surprising or as niche as it might appear-a close reading of religious experiences will readily demonstrate that the divine path is always fraught with terror, and where else but in horror fiction can we find the spirits, miracles, and gods that once dominated human interactions with their (largely unknown and mysterious) environment? That this isn't more obvious to us is a testimony to the fact that we've distanced ourselves from the uncanny strangeness of religious sentiment-perhaps this very distance makes the numinous in horror more urgent now than ever.

Mysterium Tremendum is a quarterly chapbook dedicated to this potent intersection.

Tag This Book

This Book Has Been Tagged
It hasn't. Be the first to tag this book!

Our Recommendation

None. The price of this book has not changed since we started tracking it.

Notify Me When The Price...

  • £
  • If I'm already tracking this book...

to track this book on eReaderIQ.

Track These Authors

to track Benjamin Gardner on eReaderIQ.

  • to be notified each time the price drops on any book by Benjamin Gardner.
  • to stop tracking Benjamin Gardner.

to track Justin A. Burnett on eReaderIQ.

  • to be notified each time the price drops on any book by Justin A. Burnett.
  • to stop tracking Justin A. Burnett.

to track Kurt Newton on eReaderIQ.

  • to be notified each time the price drops on any book by Kurt Newton.
  • to stop tracking Kurt Newton.

to track Scott R. Jones on eReaderIQ.

  • to be notified each time the price drops on any book by Scott R. Jones.
  • to stop tracking Scott R. Jones.

Price Summary

  • We started tracking this book on July 8, 2021.
  • The current price of this book is £3.66 last checked one day ago.
  • This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

Genres

Additional Info

  • Text-to-Speech: Disabled
  • Lending: Disabled

We last verified the price of this book about one day ago. At that time, the price was £3.66. This price is subject to change. The price displayed on the Amazon.co.uk website at the time of purchase is the price you will pay for this book. Please confirm the price before making any purchases.