The numinous

The numinous is the term coined by the German theologian Rudolf Otto, from the Latin numen, “divine power”, in his book The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige, 1917). Otto argued that the holy is not first of all a moral or rational idea, but a unique category of experience, which he called the numinous, and which can be evoked but not defined.

Otto described the numinous as mysterium tremendum et fascinans: a mystery that is “wholly other”, beyond ordinary understanding; tremendous, arousing awe, dread and a sense of one’s own creatureliness; and fascinating, drawing the soul with longing and delight. He found it in the Hebrew prophets, in the Bhagavad Gītā’s vision of Krishna’s universal form, and in Luther.

Otto distinguished numinous experience from mysticism, though he held them related, and later compared Eckhart and Śaṅkara in Mysticism East and West. His account was immensely influential in the study of religion; critics have argued that it takes a Protestant Christian experience as the model for all religion.