Numinous

Numinous /ˈnjuːmᵻnəs/ is an English adjective, derived from the Latin numen, meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring"."

Origins

Numinous is an English adjective, derived in the 17th century from the Latin numen, that is, (especially in ancient Roman religion) a "deity or spirit presiding over a thing or space". Meaning "denoting or relating to a numen", it describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity. According to German theologian Rudolf Otto, the numinous experience has in addition to the mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling, a quality of fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel.

The numinous experience also has a personal quality, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly Other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy and/or the transcendent.

Popularization

The word was popularized in the early 20th century 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. C.S. Lewis, citing Rudolf Otto, brought the concept into the mainstream of readership; Lewis described the numinous experience as follows:

Numinous (disambiguation)

Numinous is an English adjective and noun, taken from the Latin numen, “divinity.” But where numen refers to an objective divine being, numinous as an adjective refers to a subjective state. Numinous the noun refers to that which stimulates the subjective state. For example, a numinous grotto is distinct from the numen of the grotto. Numinous is used in the following contexts:

Interface with divinity

Philosophy