Repelling and fascinating

I may be out on a very much extended limb with this post, but I cannot help myself.

While the speaker in Invisible Man was watching the men and women outside of the eviction in chapter thirteen, he says "I saw them start up the steps and felt suddenly as though my head would split. I knew that they were about to attack the man and I was both afraid and angry, repelled and fascinated." Whether or not this is an intentional allusion, it reminds me of an article I read in a religion class entitled "The Ambiguity of the Sacred" by Roger Caillois. In Caillois article, he discusses how religious experiences are both positive and negative. He says "It both repels and fascinates. It is taboo and dangerous. It suffices that one desires to approach and possess it at the very moment in which one is keeping a proper distance from it." The speaker is afraid of the crowd and the events that will unfold, but he is also captivated by the entire situation.
The relation of these quotes makes me believe that this scene in the book is a religious experience, or sacred event of sorts. It is sacred in that it differs from what the speaker is used to and he acts in a way that is not like how he had acted previously in the novel. This scene is intense in a way that the rest of the novel is not, and I feel like it was put into the novel as a very significant event that serves as a turning point in the speaker's life.

I am not positive that Ellison intended this scene to evoke a sense of sanctity, but my interpretation of it leads me to believe that it is definitely out of the speakers realm of "everyday".