Ninian Smart- Katie Randazzo

In Ninian Smart’s essay, The Experiential Dimension, he remarks on religious experience and how an individual should categorize personal religious experience. One notion in particular is the notion of the numinous experience. Here, Smart shows that the numinous experience is fearful, awe-inspiring, fascinating and that is what draws one near it. This pegs on the concept that God is Holy- not just good. It is a type of lure that one cannot deny is out of this world. This made me think of “the call” portion of Phenomenology of Prayer. Here, an individual is interacted with by the divine in a way that is not ignorable.  It is not something sought after but rather something encountered, available in any possible time, in any possible location. Smart contrasts his theory of the numinous with the theory of the mystical experience. He exclaims that the mystical experience is non-dual compared to the numinous state of duality. The numinous experience of the divine seems  to need spiritual ritual and practice before knowing how to differentiate the divine’s holy call. Thinking of an individual new in their faith, do you think that the numinous experience of the divine needs practice? Or is that completely going against the knowledge of God being Holy?