As I was thinking about this aspect of transcendence, a friend shared with me a paper by psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt describing a little-studied emotion called awe. They defined this emotion as a response to an experience of vastness, something so great or powerful that it lies outside our usual frame of reference. Immense canyons, towering mountains, or celestial phenomena trigger our sense of awe, as do great works of art or music.
