Numinous is a concept derived from the Latinnumen meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring". The term was popularized by the German theologianRudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book Das Heilige, which appeared in English as The Idea of the Holy in 1923. Otto's concept of the numinous influenced thinkers including Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and C. S. Lewis.
Origins
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 underlyingall things.
Popularization
The word was popularized by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 book Das Heilige, which appeared in English as The Idea of the Holy in 1923. Otto writes that while the concept of "the holy" is often used to convey moral perfection – and does entail this – it contains another distinct element, beyond the ethical sphere, for which he uses the term numinous. He explains the numinous as a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self". This mental state "presents itself as ganz Andere, wholly other, a condition absolutely sui generis and incomparable whereby the human being finds himself utterly abashed." 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 reach 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." Chapters 4 to 6 are devoted to attempting to evoke the numinous and its various aspects. Using Latin, he describes it as a mystery that is at once terrifying and fascinating. He writes: C.S. Lewis described the numinous experience as follows in The Problem of Pain:
