>If I remember correctly, at one point St Paul was mistaken for
>Greek god or a hero such as Hercules.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] reminded me of the New Testament, Acts
14:8 - 18 (KJV), specifically v. 12:
And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he
was the chief speaker.
Thanks! For some reason, I did not think of searching for `Jupiter'
when I looked. This is a good example of people having a numinous
experience and understanding it in their own cultural context.
As Roy Rappaport says in his hard-to-read, but very good book from
1979, "Ecology, Meaning and Religion", a numinous experience compounds
the emotions of love, fear, dependence, fascination, unworthiness,
majesty, and connection. It does not have any particular references,
but "is powerful, indescribable, and utterly convincing."
And as I note in
http://www.rattlesnake.com/notions/Choice-and-Constraint.html
Traditionally, numinous experiences were interpreted in terms of a
culture's religion. Communications about them failed to cross
cultures.
However, a person can replicate another's reasoning, seeing, or
experiment and this process can cross cultures (or enough of
them). Since the reasoning, observing, or experimenting are done
by the person, not by someone else reporting to the person, these
experiences are as utterly convincing as a numinous religious
experience.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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