More Than Meets the Eye

This essay takes up the maṇḍala, as it appears in the non-dual Śaiva traditions of Kashmir, as a helpful point of comparison with the cross. It centers on two instances in which contemplating a shocking image becomes a theologically illuminating practice: Julian of Norwich’s contemplation on her vision of the crucifixion scene, and tantric meditations on Śiva in the terrible form of Bhairava. Reading these practices together yields an interpretation of the cross that disrupts the logical calculus of substitutionary atonement through sensory and imaginative encounters with an “at-one-ment” of divinization and solidarity.