Carl Jung | Rudolf Otto | Numinous | Single Hit
Brandon Handley 0:02
What is up? What is spiritual dope? Today, we are going to talk about, we're going to talk about this word numinous. We're gonna talk about this word numinous. And we're gonna start off just like this, we're gonna jump right into it, and we're going to take your entire life experience can most likely be summed up in a couple of words, you probably have just a few words that you would use to convey the entirety of it. And at most, you refer to specific moments in time, seasons, segments of the whole, what we fill those moments with? Is it possible for you to fill them up with a story of how they were, or the stories flat draw without any true depth, like a pothole versus a lake? Right. Oftentimes, you feel slightly detached and sometimes you may feel powerless or overwhelmed. You feel as though the universe is swallow you whole, without even taking a moment to savor the delight dish you feel like this oblivious to any onlooker yet do you have a desire
Unknown Speaker 1:08
you have a knowing
Brandon Handley 1:10
there are moments in your seasons that that's the sometimes they just don't make the cover no so your story there are moments in life where you're completely in tune with who you are seemingly in sync with all of the universe. I'd like to think that maybe it's a moment we sing along with your favorite song and your heart pulses in a different frequency. a surge of what it feels like in love emotes from from your entire body. Maybe you were dancing last night was pure magic. Can you dance through the entire evening and, and each move was a release of pure energy that moves your body in line with the cosmos. It could be as simple as revelation, like a moment I like in jujitsu. It's it's a tiny inhale that expands your chest. It's so cool. able to finish up the choke. moments like this have certainly been. They've been considered being in flow, a term that was coined by psychologists my highly Jakob his last name, cissna, Nima, Holly, whatever. Look, if you look up flow, you'll find this guy maoli and describes optimal experience. He says during flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity and a total involvement with life. Now, I'm going to use the word numinous. I'm in kind of like tandem with flow. And that feeling of a numinous means according to Merriam Webster, it's it's supernatural, filled with the sense of the presence of divinity or holy or appealing to the higher emotions and to the aesthetics. sense spiritual. And the words arrived from the Latin word Newman, meaning Divine Will or not, it's just a figurative nodding of or the ascent or of command of the Divine head. This is a state of being that can be mimicked by drug use, or drinking or just you know, pure intoxication.
Unknown Speaker 3:25
mimicked
Brandon Handley 3:26
right, in short, going out of your mind, so that you know you're able to experience yourself and I like to, I like to segment those two words yourself because they in this context is two different two different pieces. And look, you know, intoxication is not sustainable. And it's certainly fraught with its own sets of dangers and in an untruth, asked me how I know, you know, truly pales in comparison to know this true experience of Numinous But it is a version of it right? I will say that. But imagine being able to access the space within you this this feeling of Numinous that will a connectedness that is indeed supernatural by comparison to your natural being your everyday default position and then we that we discussed towards the beginning of this one right we just we just being and it's kind of flat as draw and just living kind of Jesus to existing it's all default. Now this this word numinous is a very word that Carl Jung used to describe his own experience with the divine. And he lifted the word from professor of theology, Rudolf Otto. He felt that there was a need for a specialized word to describe the concept of holy without, without moral without the morality factor without moral factor.
I think that's kind of interesting, right? Because most people feel like there's got to be, you're not allowed to feel that space, unless you've been morally correct your entire life. So, and I love how young defines it as a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will, the humanism, whatever its cause maybe is an experience of the subject independent of their will. The humanism is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness. And, you know, it was Young's thinking that this is either a quality inherent to an object or an experience that comes over person, often inadvertently. So what's happening here, so, let's know some kernels of truth. Yeah, yeah, there's there are many of these moments. feelings and newness, newness. They Come unbidden or john calls out inadvertently. In physical nature, this is what you may call to me he has What? You one reference point is kind of like when you're hitting your stride again, going back to flow. This is a it's a similar feeling. But not 100% the same. And let me see, I can't remember if I get to that or not. So, and this is again, I'm saying that so that you understand that that's kind of the sensation or somewhat of a state of ecstasy. Right. So, but not you imagine this feeling coming over you Only you haven't been running. You haven't been dancing. It is a feeling as Jung says all of his work with his patients, as though as he as he watched their complexities and confronted their unconscious that feeds the hunger of the soul and provides feelings of liberation. relief. It's like this just weight, this weight comes off of you. And you're relieved and and Okay, and liberty is just as he said. And it obviously obviously you can hear the struggle in my voice as I tried to describe it for you. But what I want to do is couch it for you so that should you ever find yourself feeling these things or in a certain way that you're not losing your shit, right that you're you're you're in a known space. And it's so well known that, you know, this is a feeling that it goes hand in hand with Joseph Campbell's work and emphasizes the call of the hero. And as young states it's a feeling that while ineffable it's also and I love this word called it any any loose, right, it cannot be resisted. It can be be ignored. And just like when the called the heroes resisted this, there's the refusal. The call, refusing the call can can certainly have grave consequences for both the hero and the wider world. I always I would always say, you know, if you don't step into your greatness if you don't share what so what's calling to be shared through you? Do your there's somebody out there waiting for you, right? There's somebody out there that need you to step into your greatness, whatever that means for you, right? That's the call of the hero. Then somebody else is being impacted because you are not acting. Right. You can see heroes who have who certainly refuse to call stories like Sodom and Gomorrah were lots more Wife is turned to a pillar assault looking back the burning cities after God told her not to or of the medieval legend, the wandering Jew who was cursed to walk the earth until Christ returned as penance for having taunted mankind's Redeemer on his way to crucification. And don't be wrong guys. I'm looking for stories to relate this I don't know these stories myself, but if they're speaking to you, and I hope that they do you know, that that's those are some of the a couple of the stories. Right. And, but understand,
Unknown Speaker 9:32
also,
Brandon Handley 9:34
that the refusal is generally human nature and it's not final. The call will continue. It doesn't stop just once you try to suppress it for the first time. And you see this illustrated in a Star Wars which, you know, for those who don't know, already, is really when Joseph Campbell's work kind of came to light in the call the hero because That's the hero's journey. And we see Luke refers refused the call first, right? He says, I can't get involved. I've got work to do, right. And he leaves and his refusal to the call takes him back home. And he realizes that the destruction of his home, which he may have never even seen, we're seeing
Unknown Speaker 10:21
in the first place had he accepted the call at first.
Brandon Handley 10:26
Now, the refusal also seems to indicate like a humble nature
Unknown Speaker 10:31
of fear of the unknown for your human
Brandon Handley 10:33
right. Sometimes if you don't heed that call, or have to overcome that fear that that initial fear, then some people may see you as arrogant or, you know, maybe oblivious or maybe even dumb, I don't know, right. But again, I'm gonna use pieces of my own story. My first podcast, it was scary. First time we're going to release to reach out to one Talk to people. It was terrifying. terrifying. You know, I had no idea
Unknown Speaker 11:09
what would even come out,
Brandon Handley 11:11
and I had no idea whose lives I could or would touch were impacted, let alone my own. So
Unknown Speaker 11:19
if you do continue to refuse,
Brandon Handley 11:22
there's the regret that you always hear people talking about on their deathbed that they regret that they didn't do X, Y or Z or they'd never tried to do more, they live more, spend more time with their family, go to that baseball game, kissed that girl. Do whatever,
Unknown Speaker 11:40
right you have this life of regret
Brandon Handley 11:44
because you're not giving in to this impelling force within you. That is life. But we'll get back to young here. He noticed that when he was talking to those who ignored this call, things started to go badly eventually leading physical symptoms as the self do this, the internal self tries continues to try to get the individual's attention. The sensation of flow, as I stated at first is very similar to unbidden. But there are many ways to find yourself in this state of flow. Now, if you can recognize the state of flow and the way that is entered your life, you now have this just what I'd like to call a keyhole that you can look through and see what this feeling is like. Now, the next aspect of this numinous feeling it's a it's a challenge to time it right? You don't know exactly when it's come because like it comes in advertently, right? You don't know when it's gonna come. However, I want you to be able to recognize it. Like I keep saying, for what it is when it shows up, or again, if it has already shown up and maybe you've done your damnedest to this dismiss it, know that it will not disperse without you're attempting to shut it down through unnatural ways, through drugs through drinking through through whatever, you know, suppression, escapism all these things. To me that's also many will call in awakening, a rebirth or resurrection. And I love how psychoanalyst coffered Graf Durkheim states it just because right? He states like this, let us not forget that an experience of awakening does not create an awakened person. The doors open towards the mystery within, you are on the path of initiation, but it is a beginning,
Unknown Speaker 13:45
not
Brandon Handley 13:46
an end. And should you finally decide to accept you will with time, gradually integrate matter in spirit and you will integrate matter in spirit Otherwise, you know, the disconnected human sight. And you'll be able to with practice, you know, meditation, chanting, reading, martial arts, you'll be able to sit in this numinous space. You heard through this podcast of flow, right, which is quite similar to the numinous state, and you also heard the call of the hero. If you've experienced flow states, you're on the precipice, right? And if you can recognize what puts you into flow states, you're not too far off in my in my opinion, and from my own experience of the numinous. Right? And would you say that maybe, I would say that you can experience them at will. I mean, these are Yogi's, I'm not saying that this is not. I can't say at this point in my life that you know, that Satori, or you know, Nirvana. You know, Nirvana means something Blow out your head right blood blowing your mind is one of the one of the states so
Unknown Speaker 15:06
I think that that's possible.
Unknown Speaker 15:09
Have you found
Brandon Handley 15:09
yourself in a numinous state? Have you had a hero's call and awakening?
Unknown Speaker 15:17
a rebirth?
Brandon Handley 15:20
And again, I share all this because if you have felt the touches the tengiz of any of this and you feel like you might be gone easy. You feel like you might be losing your shit. You feel like this is a midlife crisis. You feel like you're in a Crux or situation. I disagree. College disagrees. Joseph Campbell disagrees. There's many many many, many others out there who would disagree. This is this is your state of being this kind of being awoken your your life force within you looking to expand beyond the constraints, right? So I want to hear if you've had a hero's call, I want to hear if you've had an awakening, and you know, shoot me, shoot me an email at Brandon, at Oh, where do I exist? Brandon at spiritual dope.co I hope you've enjoyed. I hope you've enjoyed this word numinous as much as I have
Transcribed by https://otter.ai