Numinous
Numinous. Descriptive of persons, things or situations having a deep emotional resonance, psychologically associated with experiences of the self.
Numinous, like numinosity, comes from Latin numinosum, referring to a dynamic agency or effect independent of the conscious will.
Religious teaching as well as the consensus gentium always and everywhere explain this experience as being due to a cause external to the individual. The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness. ["Psychology and Religion," CW 11, par. 6.]
© from Daryl Sharp’s Jung Lexicon, reproduced with kind permission of the author.
Photo © Rainer Rollfink, 2011