Jeff Russell

Thank you for the kind words, and you're most welcome!

1) Well, with that quote, I wasn't saying that the numinous is necessarily dangerous, but that the feeling is similar to things where part of the awe/thrill/respect felt is for a recognition of danger. I think the linking idea is the experience of something immense and/or powerful, and the recognition that it is enough that it could be dangerous. Sometimes this might be wrapped up in values. For example, if you are materially very comfortable, you have high social status, and your life is predictable in all the ways you want it to be, the call to religious practice, or the invitation to re-evaluate how much you should care about wealth, status, and predictability might feel dangerous. In my own experience, I've never felt like the Gods are going to literally hurt me, but I have been challenged to give up things that I have found comfortable, and the thought of openly (in person, anyway, I'm pretty open in weird corners of the internet like around here) admitting that I think the Gods are real and worship of Them is a better use of my time than watching the latest Marvel movie or climbing a workplace hierarchy can be pretty scary.

Does that help clarify?

2) Well, for one, as I mentioned to k_a_nitz above, I was being a touch flippant with that line, but there is a point of connection between the two. Otto's use of the term for "coming to sense the numinous and better understand it" is basically what divinatory tools like Tarot Cards or Runestaves are for. From a few comments in the book, he seems to see such tools as primitive and possibly crass, but the way I see it when I cast the Runes is that I'm trying to find another avenue to understanding how Wyrd (roughly, "fate") may be shaping the world and events around me, and to gain more insight than more mundane tools might give me.

But yes, basically, he's using the term in a different sense than the generally accepted meaning, one that downplays the "predicting the future" aspect and instead emphasizes the "coming to know the will of (the) God(s)."

Cheers,
Jeff