Spend a quiet hour looking at just about any good work of art and, like Nietzche’s abyss, it will look back at you. That’s the position held by Phil Ford and J. F. Martel, hosts of the Weird Studies podcast. Images of the Buddha offer sublime proof of the concept: it’s said that if you look upon the face of the Buddha in a statue, your heart can open up to peace, bliss and maybe even a taste of Nirvana itself.

But what about a video recording of such statues—in effect, digital images of images? Does Nirvana get lost in the transcoding? Perhaps not. Cinema theory suggests that the Walter Benjaminian aura of the original that might be diminished in the second-generation footage may be compensated by the moving picture’s capacity for the uncanny. Hollywood demonstrates this in countless horror movies that feature dolls, puppets and lifelike wax figures. That’s the dark side of this borderland between art, magic and the transcendent. Maybe we can also experience the uncanny in its light form as a catalyst for spiritual opening-up.

To find out, I recorded a bit of footage of the Buddhas on display at Trout Lake Abbey in the foothills of Washington’s Mt. Adams. Does the potential for awakening remain?

You tell me.