Content deleted Content added
Tags: Mobile edit Mobile app edit Android app edit App section source |
Grammar and clarity Tags: Visual edit Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
| (2 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 11:
The word was given its present sense by the German theologian and philosopher [[Rudolf Otto]] in his influential 1917 book ''Das Heilige'', which appeared in English as ''[[The Idea of the Holy]]'' in 1923.<ref>{{cite book |last=Otto|first=Rudolf |editor-first=Gregory D. |editor-last=Alles |title=Autobiographical and Social Essays |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D13tugwJcY0C |year=1996 |publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]] |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-110-14519-9|quote=[https://books.google.com/books?id=D13tugwJcY0C&q=numinous ''numinous''].}}</ref>
Otto writes that while the concept of "the holy" is often used to convey [[Moral perfectionism|moral perfection]]—and does entail this—it contains another distinct element, beyond the ethical sphere, for which he uses the term ''numinous''.<ref name="idea-holy">{{cite book|last1=Otto|first1=Rudolf|title=The Idea of the Holy|date=1923|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=0-19-500210-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/theideaoftheholy00ottouoft |access-date=31 December 2016}}</ref>{{rp|5–7}} He explains
Otto argues that because the numinous is irreducible and ''sui generis'' it cannot be defined in terms of other concepts or experiences, and that the reader must therefore be "guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reaches the point at which 'the numinous' in him perforce begins to stir... In other words, our ''X'' cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, awakened in the mind."<ref name="idea-holy" />{{rp|7}} Chapters 4 to 6 are devoted to attempting to evoke the numinous and its various aspects.
Using [[Latin]], he describes it as a mystery ({{
{{Blockquote|The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its "profane," non-religious mood of everyday experience. [...] It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of—whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.<ref name="idea-holy"/>{{rp|12–13}}<ref name="britannica">{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Meland|first1=Bernard E.|title=Rudolf Otto {{!}} German philosopher and theologian|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Otto|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]]|access-date=24 October 2016}}</ref>}}
Line 31:
Neuroscientist [[Christof Koch]] has described awe from experiences such as entering a cathedral, saying he gets "a feeling of luminosity out of the numinous," though he does not hold the [[Catholic]] religious beliefs with which he was raised.<ref name="koch-nautilus">{{cite web |last1=Paulson |first1=Steve |date=6 April 2017 |title=The Spiritual, Reductionist Consciousness of Christof Koch |url=http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-spiritual-reductionist-consciousness-of-christof-koch |access-date=22 April 2019 |website=Nautilus}}</ref>
In a 2010 article titled "[[James Cameron]]'s Cathedral: Avatar Revives the Religious Spectacle" published in the ''[[Journal of Religion and Film]]'', academic [[Craig Detweiler]] describes how the global blockbuster movie ''[[Avatar (2009 film)|Avatar]]'' "traffics in Rudolph Otto’s notion of the numinous, the wholly other that operates beyond reason. [...] As spectacle, ''Avatar'' remains virtually critic proof, a trip to Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Detweiler |first=Craig |date=2010-04-01 |title=James Cameron's Cathedral: Avatar Revives the Religious Spectacle |url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1459&context=jrf |journal=Journal of Religion & Film |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=3 |issn=1092-1311}}</ref> Cameron himself mentioned this in a 2022 interview with BBC Radio 1 when trying to explain the first movie's success, saying "There was that element that I
Psychologist [[Susan Blackmore]] describes both [[mystical experience]]s and [[psychedelic experience]]s as numinous.<ref name="blackmore">{{cite book |last1=Blackmore |first1=Susan |author-link1=Susan Blackmore |title=Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-879473-8 |pages=108, 112 |edition=2nd}}</ref> In 2009, Czech psychiatrist [[Stanislav Grof]] re-released his 1975 book ''Realms of the Human Unconscious'' under the title ''LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious''.<ref name="grof-2009">{{cite book |last1=Grof |first1=Stanislav |author-link1=Stanislav Grof |title=LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious |date=2009 |publisher=Park Street Press |location=Rochester, Vermont |isbn=9781594779930 |edition=4th (revised)}}</ref> In his 2018 book ''[[How to Change Your Mind]]'', journalist [[Michael Pollan]] describes his experience trying the powerful [[psychedelic]] substance [[5-MeO-DMT]], including the following reflection on his experience of [[ego dissolution]]:
| |||