Comments

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  Alan A. MacKENZIE March 29, 2011 at 10:31am

  YES, ABSOLUTELY, good brother (always like encountering your wisdom, Ed).  I know what you mean about language failing us when we speak of deeply "interior" experiences.  IN all three cases, I noticed several things "out of the ordinary" about these experiences: (1) time was altered (a slow motion effect), (2) mental 'acuity' (my senses were "heightened, and, (3) a profound post-experience "shift" was felt and played out in my life.  Is that the kind of thing you mean, Ed?
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  Ed Koffenberger March 29, 2011 at 10:21am

  Alan,

  My knee jerk response is yes. Was there a sense of experiencing something within the NDEs that was not "normal?" (Please forgive the total inadequacy of the words used in the question.)
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  Alan A. MacKENZIE March 29, 2011 at 10:18am

  Try as I might, I've searched the memory banks and for the life of me can't seem to recall any experiences, feelings, bolts of lightening, anything that might suggest I've experienced the "numinous".  But I was wondering, before I rabbit on about something I know little about, I've had three NDE's in my life.  Each one distinct, each one profoundly transformational.  Could one call these brushes with death an encounter with numenosity?
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  Dorene Mahoney February 22, 2011 at 3:07pm

  I found the article you mention, Laura, and am very excited to read it. Also, I've emailed Murray Stein to see if he'd allow us to post the article here, so that others could read it as well!
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  Laura Winzeler February 21, 2011 at 2:33pm

  I was inspired by something Ed K. posted in another thread last night about seeking the numinous in/through/because of/instead of our addictions (I paraphrase based on what I am working with) and went off on a google search ending up at a great article by Murray Stein. It's the first entry under "Articles".

  “On the Importance of Numinous Experience in the Alchemy of Individuation ”

  That's usually too long for me to savor in the evenings, but I went into some sort of high-attention trance due to both the subject matter and how skillfully he brought it through with words. I am still having revelations that it triggered today.
  

  

  MurrayStein.com

  Murray Stein, Murray Stein's Official Website, Jungian Analysis, Analytical Psychology, International Association for Analytical Psychology, Jungians…
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  Dorene Mahoney February 20, 2011 at 11:24pm

  Something happened last September and I don't know what it was. I had been in a serious mid-life crisis for over ten years--yes, count 'em ten! In my youth I had always been hopeful and upbeat. But, since 1999 everything seemed to have fallen away. It had lasted so long that I decided that I was a Sad Sack at heart. Then, something quietly shifted in me, and I began to come alive again. I can track signs in my dreams, but there is not a single thing that I can point to in my exterior life that would explain the shift. Those who know me well keep asking me, "Did you change your hair?" "Have you lost weight?" "Are you in love?" No, no, no. Nothing has changed, except the interior Me. What is that? Would you call that numinous? Certainly supernatural and very curious. Hmmm.
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  Dorene Mahoney January 15, 2011 at 8:36am

  Can a numinous experience also be painful? Can an experience of the Divine feel painful as it plays out, but--because something good and worthy and extraordinary comes out of it--be numinous? In hindsight, when I look at what I call "the deconstructing of Dorene," I see that it was a divine intervention in an inauthentic life. Absolutely astonishing. It could only have been orchestrated by some extraordinary force. Other experiences? Other thoughts?
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  Dorene Mahoney January 15, 2011 at 8:27am

  Yes, Ed, thank you. I don't know how you coped, but in my own situation, I found that I functioned pretty well in the moment--I made decisions and went about my days. I didn't know that friends were saying that my light had gone out. The complete shedding process took six years. Then, for fourteen months after all the losses stopped, I started to thaw, which was when the anger and hurt and pain came up. I lost my best friend during that time because I was such a drag to be around. To all the world it looked like I wasn't getting on with my life. Even I felt that way. At the same time I felt powerless to be any other way. Then, one day I read James Hollis' book, The Middle Passage, and I realized that this was the dramatic--but common--shedding that many go through at mid-life. I don't know why it must be so extremely painful for some, but I do know that I had heretofore shaped my life by values that were not my own. Anyhow, I became an entirely different human being through it all. That said, it is a delightful surprise to begin to feel light and joyful last fall. I did not know that I could feel that way again. I thought that was no longer part of my personality. I find that remarkable.
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  Melissa Jane January 14, 2011 at 9:10pm

  Thanks to both Ed & Dorene for sharing so deeply of dark nights and the light that penetrated them.
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  Ed Koffenberger January 14, 2011 at 7:34pm

  My version of this was my diagnosis of cancer followed shortly after by my wife of that time filing for divorce as I lay in the hospital. All the definitions, certainties, foundational assurances were stripped away. Then the vision.