Numinosity

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Dontaskme
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Re: Numinosity

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Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:27 pmIt seems like this could be applied to any experiencing, whether it seems obvious like the diver or less clear with numinous experiences or something considered supernatural by some, etc.
All that is known is concepts, and concepts know nothing.

If you do not understand this, there is nothing that can be done about that, it's simply seen or it isn't and nothing will change.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Atla »

Maia wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:41 am We all know it, I assume, the feeling that certain places have some sort of indefinable spiritual power or significance. In other words, they are numinous. But what causes this, and does it vary from person to person? Do Christians, for example, have this feeling inside churches? Perhaps they do, though I find churches to be quite lifeless and uninviting, even the medieval ones that are potentially interesting for historical reasons. For me, at least, I don't think I've had the feeling anywhere indoors at all. Outside, in nature, it's very different, but even then, certain specific locations stand out as being particularly powerful, where your skin literally tingles. For this reason I've often thought that the feeling may be derived from something physical, such as electro-magnetism, but I suppose this would only apply if everyone could agree which places were special in this way. I strongly suspect, though, that our early ancestors were fully aware of this phenomenon, and that this formed the basis of the first religious beliefs.
I think it's electromagnetism mainly. I know very little about the topic, because somehow electromagnetism is a thing that seems to elude my intuition. So I'll just throw around a few words like a drunk, that may be totally incorrect.

The human body may have all kinds of EM fields, plants and animals may have all kinds of EM fields. These fields come into contact to some degree, we may have evolved for millions of years, being shaped by the electromagnetic environment.

Crystals and crystal caves may block EM radiation making people calmer. People sometimes claim to have the strangest experiences when they are close to ball lightning. Then there's the Feng Shui, they may look for good and bad electromagnetic places, caused by underground water flow, or something like that.

Human consciousness may be centered around electromagnetism. Maybe what we call the human mind, is mostly what the EM field that is kept in place by the brain, is "like".

The entire planet may be like an electromagnetic tuning fork, that resonates on the Schumann frequencies. It's possible that people found these frequencies thousands of years ago, and created for example the OM meditation based on it.

I think there was an experiment where they tried to put people into an electromagneticly sterile place, to see what happens, and they developed mental problems, but I'm not sure I remember correctly.

So such places may have certain electromagnetic properties that have noticable effects on us.

Personally I get a bigger effect from a big rainstorm than from any place. I'm one of those people who find them soooooo relaxing. Maybe this also has to do with electromagnetism, and/or maybe it's because the sound of the rain quenches all the other small noises, that I otherwise always hear.
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Re: Numinosity

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Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:23 am
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2023 6:57 pm "Numinosity refers to the spiritual power in the relationship between the individual and other people and things."

I was once a devout Christian. And I felt something akin to this in church. But once God and religious crumbled in my life I have only felt this sort of "spirituality" in regard to the staggering mystery that is existence itself. Something analogous I suspect to what those like Einstein felt.

The more you think -- really think -- about questions of this sort...

Why something instead of nothing?
Why this something and not something else?
Where does the human condition fit into the whole understanding of this particular something itself?
What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the Matrix?
What of the multiverse?

...the deeper the mystery gets and the more you are left grappling to find something -- anything -- that might possibly explain it.

As for nature itself, no, try as I might, I have never felt anything akin to a "spiritual" connection to it.

And then the part where nature revolves as well around these things...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages..."

The other side of this "spiritual" coin as it were.
I find it difficult to understand how anyone could not experience such numinous feelings with regard to nature, but that's just me, of course. And yes, the power of nature is awesome, and can indeed be frightening. This in no way detracts from its power.
Yes, I understand this. And I certainly have no doubt that your own experiences are powerful indeed. But each of us have lived and do live and will live different lives. So, our interactions with nature will be different. You have been able to acquire a "spiritual Self" through nature that allows you to anchor this Self to something that is far bigger than your own individual existence.

And I had accomplished this as well. First through God, then through ideology. Now, however, in a No God world it seems reasonable to eschew what I construe to be moral and political and spiritual objectivism. Instead, I am now considerably more "fractured and fragmented". And for all of the reasons I have attempted to explain to you and others.

All I can really do is to come back over and over again to just how many like you are "out there":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

And to speculate that what they all share in common is what I call the "psychology of objectivism". The need to anchor their Self to a frame of mind that comforts and consoles them in what I construe to be an essentially meaningless and purpose existence that ends for each of us one by one in oblivion.

And then hope that perhaps someone might be able to nudge me in a direction that allows me to scramble up out of the hole I have dug my "self" down into. Philosophically, spiritually and otherwise.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Maia »

Atla wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:10 pm
Maia wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2023 8:41 am We all know it, I assume, the feeling that certain places have some sort of indefinable spiritual power or significance. In other words, they are numinous. But what causes this, and does it vary from person to person? Do Christians, for example, have this feeling inside churches? Perhaps they do, though I find churches to be quite lifeless and uninviting, even the medieval ones that are potentially interesting for historical reasons. For me, at least, I don't think I've had the feeling anywhere indoors at all. Outside, in nature, it's very different, but even then, certain specific locations stand out as being particularly powerful, where your skin literally tingles. For this reason I've often thought that the feeling may be derived from something physical, such as electro-magnetism, but I suppose this would only apply if everyone could agree which places were special in this way. I strongly suspect, though, that our early ancestors were fully aware of this phenomenon, and that this formed the basis of the first religious beliefs.
I think it's electromagnetism mainly. I know very little about the topic, because somehow electromagnetism is a thing that seems to elude my intuition. So I'll just throw around a few words like a drunk, that may be totally incorrect.

The human body may have all kinds of EM fields, plants and animals may have all kinds of EM fields. These fields come into contact to some degree, we may have evolved for millions of years, being shaped by the electromagnetic environment.

Crystals and crystal caves may block EM radiation making people calmer. People sometimes claim to have the strangest experiences when they are close to ball lightning. Then there's the Feng Shui, they may look for good and bad electromagnetic places, caused by underground water flow, or something like that.

Human consciousness may be centered around electromagnetism. Maybe what we call the human mind, is mostly what the EM field that is kept in place by the brain, is "like".

The entire planet may be like an electromagnetic tuning fork, that resonates on the Schumann frequencies. It's possible that people found these frequencies thousands of years ago, and created for example the OM meditation based on it.

I think there was an experiment where they tried to put people into an electromagneticly sterile place, to see what happens, and they developed mental problems, but I'm not sure I remember correctly.

So such places may have certain electromagnetic properties that have noticable effects on us.

Personally I get a bigger effect from a big rainstorm than from any place. I'm one of those people who find them soooooo relaxing. Maybe this also has to do with electromagnetism, and/or maybe it's because the sound of the rain quenches all the other small noises, that I otherwise always hear.
That's pretty much exactly what I think about it too. The electro-magnetic currents trigger a reaction in humans, and perhaps animals too, for all we know, that we interpret as a spiritual experience.

This is not to say that they are *not* a spiritual experience, of course. Perhaps that's exactly what a spiritual experience actually is.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Atla »

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm but it seems, especially with dontaskme, like you KNOW what is really going on.
Two nondualists may disagree about a lot of things, but this issue we all agree on.

From what I've seen, it's more common for women than for men (but still very rare), to go out into nature, far removed from everyday civilized life, just walk around in nature, and then have a spontaneous nondual awakening (spontaneous ego-death). Where you suddenly realize/remember that you ARE nature.

But this isn't really connected to any specific place, so it's actually off-topic.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Dontaskme »

Harbal wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:09 pm I would actually find it very interesting if places did turn out to have an actual mystical essence to them, rather than just a perceived one.
Exactly, thankyou.

There is only perception known, in and to the perceiver, ONLY.. To perceive is to become aware of through the senses and especially through sight.The knowing of all senses and sight is consciousness ITSELF ALONE...which is ultimately senseless, appearing as every sense known.

Can the perceiver be perceived? No. That would be like asking, can consciousness see consciousness, no, because consciousness is the only seeing there is, consciousness doesn't require to know it knows, it already is the knowing that in and of itself is unknowable.



Well said Harbal. There is only perception within the perceiver, that in and of itself, cannot be perceived.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Maia »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:25 pm
Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:23 am
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2023 6:57 pm "Numinosity refers to the spiritual power in the relationship between the individual and other people and things."

I was once a devout Christian. And I felt something akin to this in church. But once God and religious crumbled in my life I have only felt this sort of "spirituality" in regard to the staggering mystery that is existence itself. Something analogous I suspect to what those like Einstein felt.

The more you think -- really think -- about questions of this sort...

Why something instead of nothing?
Why this something and not something else?
Where does the human condition fit into the whole understanding of this particular something itself?
What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the Matrix?
What of the multiverse?

...the deeper the mystery gets and the more you are left grappling to find something -- anything -- that might possibly explain it.

As for nature itself, no, try as I might, I have never felt anything akin to a "spiritual" connection to it.

And then the part where nature revolves as well around these things...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages..."

The other side of this "spiritual" coin as it were.
I find it difficult to understand how anyone could not experience such numinous feelings with regard to nature, but that's just me, of course. And yes, the power of nature is awesome, and can indeed be frightening. This in no way detracts from its power.
Yes, I understand this. And I certainly have no doubt that your own experiences are powerful indeed. But each of us have lived and do live and will live different lives. So, our interactions with nature will be different. You have been able to acquire a "spiritual Self" through nature that allows you to anchor this Self to something that is far bigger than your own individual existence.

And I had accomplished this as well. First through God, then through ideology. Now, however, in a No God world it seems reasonable to eschew what I construe to be moral and political and spiritual objectivism. Instead, I am now considerably more "fractured and fragmented". And for all of the reasons I have attempted to explain to you and others.

All I can really do is to come back over and over again to just how many like you are "out there":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

And to speculate that what they all share in common is what I call the "psychology of objectivism". The need to anchor their Self to a frame of mind that comforts and consoles them in what I construe to be an essentially meaningless and purpose existence that ends for each of us one by one in oblivion.

And then hope that perhaps someone might be able to nudge me in a direction that allows me to scramble up out of the hole I have dug my "self" down into. Philosophically, spiritually and otherwise.
I suspect that the spiritual experience itself is basic to all of us. The religious interpretations that people put on it, however, are products of human thought, and we all know how that can turn out. Personally, I try my best to strip away all such interpretation, though I'm not saying I'm completely successful in that.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Maia »

Atla wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:35 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm but it seems, especially with dontaskme, like you KNOW what is really going on.
Two nondualists may disagree about a lot of things, but this issue we all agree on.

From what I've seen, it's more common for women than for men (but still very rare), to go out into nature, far removed from everyday civilized life, just walk around in nature, and then have a spontaneous nondual awakening (spontaneous ego-death). Where you suddenly realize/remember that you ARE nature.

But this isn't really connected to any specific place, so it's actually off-topic.
I think you're probably right about that. A lot more women than men seem to be attracted to Pagan paths such as Wicca, for example, including myself, though I found it a bit too structured and ritualised, and soon left to do my own thing.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Dontaskme »

Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:56 pm
I think you're probably right about that. A lot more women than men seem to be attracted to Pagan paths such as Wicca, for example, including myself, though I found it a bit too structured and ritualised,


and soon left to do my own thing.
And this luxurious phase of doing your own thing, will also come to pass, and will too, succumb to the great mystical divine force, that turns all people into worm fodder, in the great garden of eden, in worm heaven. The great sacred worm world awaits us all.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Maia »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:26 pm
Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:56 pm
I think you're probably right about that. A lot more women than men seem to be attracted to Pagan paths such as Wicca, for example, including myself, though I found it a bit too structured and ritualised,


and soon left to do my own thing.
And this luxurious phase of doing your own thing, will also come to pass, and will too, succumb to the great mystical divine force, that turns all people into worm fodder, in the great garden of eden, in worm heaven. The great sacred worm world awaits us all.
Returning to the earth, becoming part of the eternal cycle of life, doesn't sound like too bad a fate.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Dontaskme »

Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:33 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 6:26 pm
Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:56 pm
I think you're probably right about that. A lot more women than men seem to be attracted to Pagan paths such as Wicca, for example, including myself, though I found it a bit too structured and ritualised,


and soon left to do my own thing.
And this luxurious phase of doing your own thing, will also come to pass, and will too, succumb to the great mystical divine force, that turns all people into worm fodder, in the great garden of eden, in worm heaven. The great sacred worm world awaits us all.
Returning to the earth, becoming part of the eternal cycle of life, doesn't sound like too bad a fate.
I never said it did.

I see you have decided not to ignore me on this important issue.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Atla wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:35 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm but it seems, especially with dontaskme, like you KNOW what is really going on.
Two nondualists may disagree about a lot of things, but this issue we all agree on.

From what I've seen, it's more common for women than for men (but still very rare), to go out into nature, far removed from everyday civilized life, just walk around in nature, and then have a spontaneous nondual awakening (spontaneous ego-death). Where you suddenly realize/remember that you ARE nature.

But this isn't really connected to any specific place, so it's actually off-topic.
Maia wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 5:56 pm
I think you're probably right about that. A lot more women than men seem to be attracted to Pagan paths such as Wicca, for example, including myself, though I found it a bit too structured and ritualised, and soon left to do my own thing.
A lot of modern mindfulness (and perhaps I could drop the word modern there) is about chasing this feeling, internalising it, and for some, making it permanent. That feeling of non dualistic unity with everything. That's been on my mind a lot this year.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Dontaskme »

We all know it, I assume, the feeling that certain places have some sort of indefinable spiritual power or significance. In other words, they are numinous.
The only presence is you. Everything emanates from you. And where are you, have you got a place?

So that's it, that's all folks.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of the never ending story.....

to be continued....
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Atla »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 7:04 pm A lot of modern mindfulness (and perhaps I could drop the word modern there) is about chasing this feeling, internalising it, and for some, making it permanent. That feeling of non dualistic unity with everything. That's been on my mind a lot this year.
Well.. we always hear about this feeling of unity, this pure bliss, and such. Like it was some kind of all-pervasive feeling, out there. And then people obviously go and try to find it.

But there's no literal unity, just fundamental non-separateness. That doesn't really mean anything, beyond dissolving the everyday illusion of fundamental separations. I'm fundamentally non-separate from the Buddha, and rocks, and fish, and also from Stalin yey. And most importantly, the "Ground of being", the "Absolute".

And there's no such all-pervasive feeling or bliss. That's just a common myth from Eastern philosophy. Instead, people who go through the nondual awakening / ego-death, and realize their true nature, usually become extremely blissful for a few weeks, and then this mostly diminishes, but they usually retain a higher "base bliss level" than before.

These happen for psychological reasons in the individual mind. But it's usually true, and it's how it happened for me too, I became "happier", more "free". But the bliss is a byproduct.

Rarely there are counterexamples too, for example UG Krishnamurti, for whom awakening was a rather devastating experience.
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Re: Numinosity

Post by Dontaskme »

Atla wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 7:30 pm
Rarely there are counterexamples too, for example UG Krishnamurti, for whom awakening was a rather devastating experience.
He called it a calamity. I couldn't agree more.

It's beyond cruel, no intelligent force would have intended it. Rather, and this is just my opinion, not fact, it should never have happened.

That it did, is what we must endure now for all eternity. And endurance is all we can endure, and we do.
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