The Numinous

`Numinous – filled with a sense of the presence of divinity; holy, supernatural, mysterious…´

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

`The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous….. the fact that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.´

(C. G. Jung, Letters)

As a young boy growing up in Ireland, I was confronted with the topic of God and religion at every turn. God, hell and religion, to be more exact….

The question as to why our culture, in which we were so deeply rooted and steeped, was infected by the punitive, the terrible, and the vengeful to such a extreme degree, is a topic which would go way beyond the scope of this essay, so it may need separate treatment at a later date. The fact was, that, as a young boy, I lived in fear of God. I had been clearly instructed, mainly by teachers in my most tender years – all members of religious orders – that a list of all my sins was being accurately kept and, if I were good, I could make it to heaven, most probably by way of a stint in purgatory, a somewhat lesser form of hell. On the other hand, if I were not good, I was sure to go to hell.

We were give vivid descriptions of `good’ and `bad’, and hell, and I knew for sure I was headed in that direction. I felt nauseous in the belief that the odds had been stacked against me. This is possibly the origin of a belief system that slumbers deep in my being and still emerges from time to time even now, i.e. that I am in a lose-lose scenario. That no matter how much effort I apply to `being good´ (fulfilling the expectations of others?) in any given situation, it will never be enough.

A further point which made a deep impression upon me was the discrepancy between the theory of `God’s love’ and the behaviour of many of the adults and children I encountered in those early years. There was downright sadism in the hearts of some of the adults I encountered, and I found that children, including myself, could be extremely cruel to each other. The whole thing just didn’t add up, in my estimation. These were the observations of a child who had just recently learned to walk.

Yet, despite the hellfire and brimstone, the obvious hypocrisy, and the resulting hyper-vigilance on my part, there were green shoots of the numinous from the very beginning. One of my earliest memories is of lying in my pram within earshot of the waters flowing over the weir while the ever-present west wind blew through the crowns of great trees. In such moments, there was no doubt that I was part of a great design, to which I fully belonged. That sense of belonging, that ease and comfort, revisited and soothed me through the years of childhood and adolescence.

There were, of course, the warm, loving encounters with family and friends. The manner in which some adults can convey to a child his or her own specialness is a thing of wonder. Those moments of `being seen´, unadorned and without the need of a protective mask, were blessings indeed. I had my share of those encounters despite my propensity for spending time alone in nature rather than fulfilling endless responsibilities and trying to make a good impression among my brethren.

Nature is the great saviour! This is where the connection to the numinous lay, and was continually nurtured, even through periods of darkness and despair. Having been uprooted at a young age, I had lived in four different houses in cities far apart in my first ten years. In addition, this connection was severely put to the test by a number of factors; the continuous stream of new family members (I am the fifth of ten children), emotional abuse and worse at the hands of people in positions of authority, life in a country torn asunder by civil war, the loss of parents at very early ages, etc. And, thought at times buried under the rubble of some disaster or other, the connection was never completely lost.

I always had recourse to the magnificent Atlantic sky above the dramatic Irish landscape. How often I lost myself in reverie, simply imagining what those cloud shapes represented. Or peering into open fires for hours on end, enchanted by the slow dynamic which turned coal or turf into ashes. And water; again and again, whether the great river on which the Vikings had built and shaped the City of Limerick, or the lakes my Dad like to visit on our Sunday walks or, best of all, the terrific ocean of summer holiday memories, with wind, sand, surf, and salt on my skin.

Towards the end of my teens, around the juncture of the untimely death of my dear father, I began to indulge in substances which `took the edge off´ the unbearable pain of my Weltschmerz. I was well down the slippery slope of addiction before I half knew or even cared. Highly-functioning as I was, and still am, I was able to meet the demands of society while leading my double life and heading towards spiritual bankruptcy. Career, family, further education and hobbies were all kept afloat. This is not a good alternative to actually thriving. It is simply a testimony to human resilience. In the end I could no longer live with my self in my addiction or live without it.

Before a chain of events in the summer of 2003 brough me the grace of relinquishing this destructive life and embracing the path of recovery, I had had two distinctly memorable dreams. In one, I discovered that I would be very happy to hire God as `head of department´ in any organisation I managed. On seeing this, I was aghast! The second was a dream in which I was cleaning out a hearth in the morning, believing the ashes to be cold. To my surprise, I discovered a few tiny embers deep in the pile of fluffy ashes, and with much attention, skill and loving care, I was able to build a new roaring fire with twigs and sods of good dry turf. After this dream, I knew there was still hope.

One of the first major bumps on the road in twelve step recovery is the mention of `God, as we understood him´. Most people balk, having had experiences similar to those I had had in my childhood. If we are lucky, we are encouraged to create our own image of a loving God which enables us to tap into our higher natures. As it turns out, this `approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience you are released from the curse of pathology´.

The great paradox is that as I admit my earthly powerlessness, I gain access to the numinous, a power of higher order, which enables me to relinquish the need for the illusion of control, and thereupon to heal, grow and thrive in the face of my earthly powerlessness. The Self and the self undergo appropriate rearrangement in the cosmic constellation of the human condition.

In this respect, `even the very disease (in this case, addiction) takes on a numinous character´ and primordial trust is restored.