What does the term numinous mean?

1 : supernatural, mysterious. 2 : filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : holy. 3 : appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual.

What is meant by a numinous experience?

‘Numinous’ comes from ‘numen’, Latin for the power of a deity or spirit, so a numinous experience is one that ‘relates to the power of a deity or spirit’: it is a religious experience of a being who is utterly transcendent – above and beyond the world – and completely holy.

What does numinous mean in philosophy?

Numinous was derived in the 17th century from the Latin numen, meaning a “deity or spirit presiding over a thing or space.” It describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity. It is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, a Greek term referring to an unknowable reality underlying all things.

What is an example of a numinous experience?

a sense of being in the presence of an awesome power, yet feeling distinctly separate from it. The word given to describe this feeling is numinous. vision of the burning bush, are experience of the numinous.

What does the term hagiography mean?

1 : biography of saints or venerated persons. 2 : idealizing or idolizing biography an account that smacks of hagiography.

What does Distrait mean in English?

: apprehensively divided or withdrawn in attention : distracted.

What are two examples of Revelation in the Bible?

For example, Christians believe that creation (i.e. the Earth, space, nature, etc.) is general revelation which points to the existence of god; as Psalm 19 in the Bible puts it, ‘the heavens declare the glory of god’. The second type of revelation is known as ‘special’ revelation.

Can religious experience be verified?

In conclusion: religious experience are valuable and can be verified using several methods such as Swinburne’s Principles of Testimony and Credulity. Therefore, religious experience can be verified.

What is Otto’s theory of religion?

Otto was one of the most influential thinkers about religion in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for his analysis of the experience that, in his view, underlies all religion. As mysterium, the numinous is “wholly other”– entirely different from anything we experience in ordinary life.

What is the meaning of liminality?

1 : of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response liminal visual stimuli. 2 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional … in the liminal state between life and death.—

What is an example of a spiritual experience?

A spiritual experience is described as an incident that goes beyond human understanding in how this experience could have happened in the first place. These types of experiences include situations like dodging death when you were in an otherwise dangerous scenario or unexplainable monetary gain.

What are the characteristics of mystical experience?

According to James, mystical experiences have four defining qualities:

• Ineffability. According to James the mystical experience “defies expression, that no adequate report of its content can be given in words”.
• Noetic quality.
• Transiency.
• Passivity.

What does it mean when something is numinous?

Things that are numinous seem holy or spiritual and mysterious. The account of spiritual struggle that follows has a humbling and numinous power. COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary.

How is the numinous used in religious studies?

The concept of the numinous continues to be theorized about and applied in contemporary academic research in religious studies and utilized as part of a framework for understanding religion in university courses on world religions and other topics in the academic study of religion.

What are some examples of numinous mysticism?

In later works, such as Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism (1932), Otto gives numerous examples of the ways in which the concept of the numinous can be applied cross-culturally to traditions beyond Christianity, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

How did Aldous Huxley describe the numinous?

Mysterium tremendum, another phrase coined by Otto to describe the numinous, is presented by Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception in this way: The literature of religious experience abounds in references to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum.