Having a strong religious or spiritual quality — suggesting the presence of a divinity or inspiring a sense of awe and mystery beyond rational explanation.

Coined by theologian Rudolf Otto in his 1917 work Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy) to describe the irreducible core of religious experience.

Otto described the numinous experience as mysterium tremendum et fascinans — a mystery that is simultaneously terrifying and irresistibly compelling.

From the Latin numen, meaning divine will or divine power — the authoritative spirit that the Romans believed inhabited sacred places and objects.

C.S. Lewis wrote extensively about the numinous in Mere Christianity, arguing that the universal human feeling of awe was the strongest argument for God's existence.